South Africa's electricity price has risen more than 20 times since 1994 — nearly all of it after 2007

From 1994 to 2007, Eskom's tariff barely doubled — tracking broadly with inflation. But the utility's debt-fuelled power station build programme (Medupi and Kusile) triggered relentless above-inflation hikes: by 2026 the tariff was more than 12 times its 2007 level, outstripping cumulative CPI by a factor of roughly four.