With power utility Eskom breaching 300 days without loadshedding, the national energy debate is likely to shift from availability to affordability, says Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.

Addressing the Cape Town Press Club this week, he said “every, single MW” the city was buying from sources other than Eskom was cheaper than the electricity on offer from the State-owned entity – and this was before the up-to-44% tariff hike application Eskom had lodged with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for the 2025/26 financial year.

“I think the debate is increasingly going to turn to the affordability of power, and not so much availability,” noted Hill-Lewis.

“The last ten years public anger has been focused on availability, and we kind of put up with these extraordinary price increases because of the availability crisis.

“Now that this is receding, we’ll have a lot more public attention on the affordability issue.”

Hill-Lewis said the lull in loadshedding had not convinced the City of Cape Town to deviate from its planned energy budget, with the metro rolling out several power projects to reduce its reliance on Eskom, including a new solar plant, a battery energy storage system, and a small-scale energy generation programme.

Hill-Lewis hoped loadshedding would not make a return, “for South Africa’s sake”, but added that anything remained possible.

At this point, the city’s power programme was increasingly driven by soaring Eskom costs more than anything else, he added.

“Frankly, we must continue to reduce our reliance on Eskom as quickly as possible.”