Johannesburg – Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) figures reveal that almost 90 percent of all South African households now have access to electricity, Eskom said on Saturday.
Stats SA this week released a selection of key findings from the annual general household survey conducted between January and December last year, the parastatal said in a statement.
According to the survey, the percentage of households connected to the electricity supply from the mains had increased consistently from 77.1 percent in 2002 to 85.5 percent in 2015.
The percentage of households using electricity for cooking increased from 58 percent in 2002 to 78.1 percent in 2015. Electricity as a source of energy for cooking was highest in Free State (86.9 percent), Northern Cape (85.9 percent), and Western Cape (85.4 percent) and lowest in more rural provinces such as Limpopo (60.1 percent), Eastern Cape (73.1 percent), and Mpumalanga (74.2 percent) where alternative fuels such as wood were, perhaps, more accessible and affordable, Eskom said.
“The survey showed that nearly 90 percent of households in the country are now connected to the grid. This is in line with government’s ambition of achieving universal electricity access by 2025. In the next three years, Eskom and municipalities will spend R17.6-billion to connect over 840,000 households to the national grid, and an additional 70 000 households will be connected through non-grid solar electrification programmes.”
Separately, Stats SA’s report on electricity generation showed that electricity production rose 0.8 percent year-on-year in April this year compared to the yearly figure of -4.3 percent reported in March.
Month-on-month electricity generation in April also increased by 0.3 percent compared to -1.8 percent in March. The report also showed that electricity consumption had increased marginally, Eskom said.
African News Agency (ANA)