City Power, the local utility in Johannesburg, imposed a monthly service charge on the prepaid meters it compelled many poor households to accept.
Photographer: Leon Sadiki/Bloomberg
Rising Prices Are Deepening the Electricity Divide In South Africa
An erratic grid is pushing the middle class toward solar panels and batteries, leaving the poor at the mercy of rising prices and new fees from utilities.
Late last year, residents of Yeoville and Bellevue — crumbling inner city areas of Johannesburg — went without power for four weeks after a 63-year-old cable broke. For several months after, power to the electricity supply was rotated between the two areas in four-hour blocks. Then the cuts were reduced to two hours a day as the city’s aging infrastructure grappled with overloading.
And yet, on July 1 electricity costs for some of South Africa’s poorest people, including in Yeoville and Bellevue, went up as much as 60%.