Electricity increases…

Gregg — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:31:51 +0000

So Eskom’s been granted increases of 24.8%, 25.8% and 25.9% for the next 3 years. Not as big as they wanted but still significant. What does it mean for us as consumers?

There is a beautiful little rule called the “rule of 72″ which states if you want to know how quickly something will double in value/cost you need to divide the number into 72. So based on this, an increase of 25% means that the price of electricity will double just under every 3 years (72/25 = 2.9).

So if you are currently paying R3oo for electricity then this will increase to about R600 in 3 years time (see the tables below for the actual figures). Basically, the cost of electricity will double over the next 3 years and while this may not seem like a lot to you and me right now, the real cost will come through in the related inflationary effects and only time will reveal what that will be.

So as we say in our house when ever you leave a room at night “Eskom thanks you for turning off the lights”.

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Electricity increases…