By Ferial Haffajee, Daily Maverick
Africa’s powerhouse city is going back to the Dark Ages after decades of post-apartheid electrification gains. A Johannesburg power data investigation by Daily Maverick has found a total of 97 715 reported power outages in nine months – with more than 5 126 serious enough to take out entire suburbs at once. This is the first independent attempt to put a number on the scale of Johannesburg’s power crisis placing South Africa’s economic powerhouse at risk.
We began tabulating quarterly reports from City Power from July 2024 to the end of March 2025.The key finding: serious high-voltage and medium-voltage outages are getting worse as the grid reaches its end of life. As we reported the impact of outages on people’s lives, a few trends became clear: citizens and residents are turning to old forms of energy such as paraffin and petrol because solar is still too expensive for most.
Business margins of the vital small and medium-sized hustle businesses so important to national growth are seeing their margins chopped because they must buy expensive inverters and generators to keep going.
Many are shutting shop, laying off people or not expanding because they can’t afford to hire more staff even where there is demand.
Kabelo, a resident and a student at The Finishing College in Braamfontein who runs a business in Vlakfontein, said: “The power outages are very bad, hey, because literally every time it starts raining, or it rains, or it gets a little windy, the lights go. They’re gone for days. It’s not a few hours – it’s four to six days at a time. Food rots and there’s no water to bathe. It’s stressful for everybody. Most houses here have gas stoves, or primer stoves that use paraffin, and others light a fire to boil water to bathe or to cook. It’s really hard. Imagine getting up in the morning to go and look for wood for a fire. As a student, it’s bad, because you have to do schoolwork. Without WiFi the (mobile phone) towers go down and the network is bad. I can’t complete my assignments, so I have to do everything there in Braamfontein, and catch late transport back home again.”
This city-level energy crisis emerges as Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa finally gets a grip on national load shedding. The impact of the city’s outages is significant because Johannesburg is still responsible for 16% of national GDP.
The chart shows that from July 2024 to the end of March 2025 there were 97 715 reported outages – the absolute total may be lower because some might be reported more than once. Even half that number would be cripplingly high. Daily Maverick added a second level of data extraction from municipal distributor City Power’s social media posts and found that from December 2024 to the end of February 2025 there were 5 126 outages serious enough for the utility to report publicly. It can’t report all outages because there are too many.
The mass of outages are so-called low-voltage outages and affect individual homes or a single street or a few properties. The medium-voltage outages are increasing: these affect an entire suburb or even many suburbs at once. These are caused by faults in larger powerlines or mini substations, distributors or transformer substations that supply 20 to 30 households or more. These are now an everyday standard across Johannesburg and are disempowering residents from the north to the south and east to west of the city.
The age of the grid and the general decline are clear when you look at how outages are spread fairly evenly across the different distributing centres: Alexandra, Hursthill, Inner City, Lenasia, Midrand, Randburg, Reuven and Roodepoort. Soweto and other smaller parts of Johannesburg are serviced by Eskom and experience as many outages. As the utility – which is R15-billion in overdraft carried by the City, with many more billions in debt – runs out of cash, it can’t hold stock and must buy on demand. This means outages last longer.
South Africa’s leading energy expert, Chris Yelland of EE Publishers, said municipal outages are getting longer. “(The outages) are exceptionally high by global standards,” he said.
As we hit the city to report, many people said that multi-day or full-day outages are common now. “City Power is particularly hard hit because it’s in a dire financial state. If you don’t have money, you can’t carry spares.” Yelland said suppliers hesitated to do business with Johannesburg’s electricity utility because it didn’t pay efficiently. He said City Power was extending terms to 30, 60, 90 or even 120 days’ credit and now suppliers wanted bank guarantees first. All of this extended outage times.
“We’re talking about mini-transformers, cables, switch-gear, mini substations, electricity metering equipment…” The small and medium-sized suppliers couldn’t fund supplies on 120-day credit lines. “It’s on the verge of a tipping point,” said Yelland who explained that because municipalities make up 50% of Eskom’s sales, their non-payments were existential.
Because people can’t afford their bills, debt owed by municipalities to Eskom is growing at R3-billion a month and has now overshot a total of R100-billion. This in turn threatens Eskom’s viability, Ramokgopa said when he announced a deal for City Power to pay off old debt owed to Eskom over four years. City Power also owes Eskom R3.2-billion, according to a recent settlement mediated by the minister, which will be paid off over four years.
Question: The Q3 report from City Power shows that in three months there were 29,084 low-voltage outages, 1 335 medium-voltage outages and 86 high-voltage outages between January and March 2025. This builds on a picture of massive outages across the city that are largely unrecognised in the public discourse. Would you classify this as a crisis? If not, could you explain why not?
Answer: The figures reflect significant pressure on the electricity network. However, City Power does not classify the situation as a crisis. This is because a single outage may affect multiple customers who each log the fault separately, and sometimes repeatedly. In line with Nersa regulations, each logged call must be reported individually, even if it relates to the same event.
The high number of outage calls results from a range of factors, including consumer-related faults, equipment failures, overloads and incidents caused by third parties. Ageing infrastructure – especially in areas like Roodepoort, Randburg, Hursthill, the Inner City and Reuven – also contributes to system failures.
While City Power prioritises replacing old infrastructure with advanced technology during repairs, progress is constrained by a R40-billion infrastructure backlog and limited funding (for example, only R1.2-billion allocated last year).Severe weather at the start of the year compounded the problem. Heavy rain, flooding and uprooted trees caused widespread damage, especially to underground cables. Moisture intrusion led to insulation failures and hampered testing and repair efforts. Vandalism of mini substations made things worse under these conditions. For example, in Roodepoort, a mini substation exploded after water damage and had to be replaced.
Q: Has City Power undertaken impact studies on how this affects residents and businesses?
A: Yes. City Power conducts regular service-level impact assessments aligned with the Joburg IDP. These inform initiatives like Energy Relief Packages and the Just Energy Transition Plan. Our 2025 Customer Satisfaction Baseline Survey confirmed a link between outages and increased household spending on alternative energy. We also track plant outages and infrastructure performance daily and conduct impact assessments to guide future investment.
Q: Our reporting shows that communities across geographic and economic lines are turning to costly and risky alternatives like paraffin and generators. What’s your view?
A: We recognise the safety and cost concerns associated with these alternatives. They are neither ideal nor sustainable. City Power is working to reduce this dependence by expanding embedded generation, managing demand and rolling out smart meters under our Just Energy Transition Strategy.
Q: Given the city’s high consultancy spend (as reported in News24), what does the medium-term picture look like?A: The consultancy spend supports the need for specialised skills to modernise Johannesburg’s energy system. The medium-term outlook includes stabilising the grid through capital investment, digitalisation of asset management and integrating independent power producers. These efforts are essential, not superficial.
Q: Is City Power struggling to access spare parts due to high levels of debt?
A: Nonpayment for electricity impacts our ability to fund infrastructure and maintain stock of spares. While we’ve experienced procurement delays, improved supply chain controls and vendor payment acceleration have helped. We’re also seeing positive results from better meter reading and audit systems.
Q: A Daily Maverick count based on City Power’s social media suggests far fewer outages than in your reports. Why the discrepancy?
A: Our social media only reports major high-voltage and medium-voltage outages for public awareness. Most outages (low voltage) are recorded internally via our Outage Management System, SCADA, and call centre logs. Daily internal reports track all MV outages across our Service Delivery Centres.
*GLOBE POST teams up with Daily Maverick for impactful newsroom collaboration*
