The General Household Survey shows that has been a significant improvement in the percentage of households that were electrified since 2002. Between 2002 and 2012, the percentage of households with access to electricity increased from 77,1% to 85,3%.
Despite this large increase, 11% or (1,45 million) households did not have access to electricity in 2012, while another 3,6% or 578 000 accessed electricity informally or illegally.
Of these 420 000 households, 73% were connected to a source that the households paid for (an informal connection) and 12,% reported that they were connected to a source for which the household was not paying, an illegal connection.
While 98,2% of electrified households used electricity for lighting, the proportion dropped to 84,5% for cooking. This drop is significant as electricity use for lighting is estimated to account for only about 5 to 10% of the energy consumed by poor households, while cooking, and space heating, is estimated to account for most of the remainder ( 90% or more) of the total energy demand.
The report finds that, nationally, about 50% of households spent less than 5% of their income on electricity, and about three-quarters (74,9%) spent less than 10%. In total, 8,8% spent more than 20% of their income on electricity.
Households that lived in subsidised or RDP dwellings were most likely to spent more than 20% of their household income on electricity, while only 3,4% of households in traditional did so.
Poor households in rural areas were less likely to spend as much of their income as those in urban areas, largely due to in part the availability of affordable alternative energy sources such as wood.
The percentage of households that rated the quality of electricity supply services they received as ‘good’ declined from 67,4% in 2010 to 61,6% in 2012 while the percentage that rated it as ‘poor’ increased from 5,7% in 2010 to 9,4% over the same period.
Households, almost universally, reported that it would be unacceptable to not pay for electricity (96,8%) or to steal electricity cables (98,6%). However, 83,2% felt that protesting against high electricity prices could be condoned sometimes or always.
For further information:
Trevor Oosterwyk, Executive Manager: Communications
Tel: 012 310 8130
