• Between 2007 and 2024, working-class households saw electricity costs increase more than 440% in nominal terms, according to the South African Federation of Trade Unions, or between 316% and 345% after adjusting for inflation. 

• The 440% mentioned above assumes subsidised electricity usage. The national average increase, before adjusting for inflation, is almost 1200% since 2007.

• Eskom charged municipalities 74 cents per kilowatt hour in 2015/16. By 2024/25 that figure had more than doubled to 184 cents per kilowatt hour. In 2026, tariffs rose by a further 8.76% for direct customers, with municipalities facing bulk increases of about 9%.

• The price of electricity penalises low-income households the most, nullifying the positive effects of government grants and services such as free education. 

• In April 2026, the Competition Commission’s Cost of Living Report found that low and medium income households are experiencing huge increases in the costs of water and electricity. These continue to increase at rates above overall consumer price index (CPI), even as headline inflation has moderated.  

• Read Myth 3 for more on how coal drives up electricity prices. 

• As of 2025, 14% of South African households have no electricity access. Those who do have access – particularly in townships and informal settlements – pay an increasing share of their income for the service. For a household spending most of its income on food, transport, and basic services, electricity price hikes are not just an inconvenience. They force direct trade-offs against food and other essentials, undermining household welfare.

• Fossil fuel subsidies in South Africa are locking the country into dependence on economically volatile fuels, while ill-targeted consumer subsidies fail to protect the poorest families. 

• By contrast, the cost of renewable energy installation bids in South Africa has decreased by more than 77% since 2011 – a cost advantage that is not being passed on to consumers, because public money keeps propping up the old system instead.

• The same coal pollution that destabilises the climate is already cutting short thousands of South African lives each year. 

• Coal isn’t just making your electricity cost more –  it has also caused an expensive public health crisis due to air pollution that our courts consider a human rights violation. 

• Breathing in this polluted air causes diseases including asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung disease, heart disease and strokes. These illnesses cost families in doctor’s visits and medicine, and they cost taxpayers through the public health system.

• In 2023, one study estimated that coal-related air pollution in South Africa led to an estimated 42,000 deaths, including over 1,200 deaths among children under five. That’s 8% of all deaths in the country that year. 

• The same study estimated that South Africa lost the equivalent of 14% of its GDP (more than R900 billion) in 2023 from the sickness, debility and death directly caused by coal-linked air pollution. This number is the calculated lost economic productivity caused by people too sick or no longer alive to participate in the economy.

• Coal-linked air pollution is associated with increases in babies’ low birth weight, miscarriages, chronic childhood asthma, ischemic heart disease, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, severe, frequent respiratory tract infections, and premature death. 

• The International Institute for Sustainable Development found for every R1 the government receives in revenue from burning coal, oil and gas, it spends R5 on social costs including deaths, disease and working days lost.  

• As for direct public health costs where people seek medical support, studies estimate coal-related health damages at R11–30 billion annually in South Africa.

• Importantly, this affects households living in proximity to pollution who cannot afford to relocate to pricier, safer places. Low-income families bear the public health burden of coal. 

• PM2.5 pollution from coal plants also causes an estimated 47,000 underweight births and 43,000 preterm births annually. The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) found in 2025 that residents of municipalities with coal power stations face a 6% greater risk of respiratory diseases and premature death than those further away – with children under five showing a notable rise in pneumonia cases, and an increased incidence of cleft lip anomalies in babies in districts with coal plants. 

• In mapping the entire fossil fuel lifecycle and exposing the health harms at every stage, from extraction to abandoned sites, the #Cradle2Grave report compiled by the Global Climate and Health Alliance finds that coal dependence is a public health emergency.  It recommends that global IMF and local subsidies for fossil fuels should be shifted to renewable energy to unlock vast public revenue that can also support public health.

• Eskom's coal fleet has been subject to detailed health modelling. A 2023 CREA study found that the delays in decommissioning South Africa's coal plants could cause 2,800 more deaths and R61 billion in health costs. A worst-case delay scenario – delaying all decommissioning to start in 2030 – would cause 15,300 more air-pollution deaths and R345 billion in economic costs. If decommissioning is further delayed into the 2030s and 2040s, that figure rises to 32,300 deaths and R721 billion in health-related economic damage.

• A qualitative study of communities in Limpopo villages near coal mines found that residents experienced noise pollution, land degradation, air and water contamination, stress, anxiety, and uncertainty over livelihoods – all simultaneously and without recourse. Another study in Limpopo had similar findings.

Employment in renewable energy is typically temporary as it is highly intensive during the manufacturing and installation phase, but less so during maintenance. This is why different metrics are used for the renewable and coal industries. However, we should note that coal jobs, too, can be temporary as jobs fluctuate with demand and mining activity, as has happened in recent years with coal mining winding down in South Africa.

Some studies use the metric of "Full-Time Equivalents (FTE) jobs" over a project's lifetime. FTE jobs do not consider the duration of the job; they include short-term construction phases and longer-term operational jobs.

• The IISD calculated that the social and environmental costs of fossil fuel combustion in South Africa – including air pollution damage and greenhouse gas emissions – amount to at least R550 billion every year. 

• That is five times the revenue made from fossil fuels. It also dwarfs the R198 billion in annual subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. 

• Scientists estimate the hidden (social and environmental) costs of carbon to be US$100-200 for every tonne of carbon pollution. 

• Individual fossil fuel companies, like the industry overall, also cost society far more than they contribute. For example, in 2025 Sasol reported earnings before interest and tax (called EBIT) of about R18.8billion. But the climate damage costs of its total greenhouse gas emissions massively exceeds these benefits, as it runs into hundreds of billions of rands.
  This calculation considers Sasol’s scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, applying contemporary estimates of the social cost of carbon – previously about $130 per tonne of carbon emissions, and now more than $282 per tonne, taking more negative effects into account. 

• “The government needs to reform its energy and fiscal policies to reflect the social and environmental costs of fossil fuels.. For example, it should tie bailouts to the energy transition,” said the IISD.  

• South Africa is spending public money to subsidise a system that is simultaneously poisoning communities, raising electricity prices, consuming scarce fiscal resources, and locking the country out of a cheaper, cleaner alternative. An article in the Conversation summarised it as follows: "Affordable electricity needs to be taken seriously... South Africa is currently unable to meet these goals because of different energy policies that do not align, a lack of investment in electricity and dependency on coal-fired power."

• Renewable energy is not a luxury the country cannot afford. The evidence consistently shows it is the cheaper, healthier option – and that continued coal dependence is entrenching poverty, and is one of the most expensive anti-poverty failures South Africa is making.

• The evidence consistently shows that renewable energy is the cheaper, healthier option, while continued dependence on coal, oil and gas is a costly mistake that entrenches poverty. 

• Myth 3 of Climate Hope explains that new sun and wind projects provide electricity that is more than three times cheaper than the electricity Eskom provides. Also, renewable energy does not carry the massive social and environmental costs outlined above. 

• This cheaper electricity has massive economic benefits, creating far more jobs. 

• Cleaning up the air by phasing out fossil fuels is one of the fastest ways to save lives and protect families’ incomes. Cutting coal, oil and gas use – and especially the dirty air from power stations, traffic and household smoke – prevents strokes, heart disease and lung disease that currently kill about seven million people globally every year, including many working‑age adults who support whole families. 

• The same steps that cut climate pollution – switching to clean energy, cleaner public transport and clean cooking – are also public‑health measures that keep breadwinners alive and able to work. 

• Avoided deaths: When Komati’s coal power units were taken offline and replaced with solar and wind, a health impact assessment found good news: over three years, the closure of this single coal plant avoided an estimated 220 premature deaths and saved the local community R4.9 billion in direct health-related economic costs.

• Even before full retirement, simply lowering current fossil-fuel intensity and substituting parts of the grid load with clean energy has huge health impacts: if Eskom goes through with its coal plant retirement plan properly, the Centre for Environmental Rights estimates that it would “would avoid a projected 2 300 deaths per year from air pollution and economic costs of R42 billion per year”, and avoid “140 000 asthma emergency room visits, 5 900 new cases of asthma in children, 57 000 preterm births, 35.0 million days of work absence, and 50 000 years lived with disability.”

• This not only reduces climate-change causing emissions - it also reduces the financial burden on our public health system, freeing up more funds for other poverty interventions, and keeps breadwinners healthy, active, and earning a living for their families. 

• Studies, policy briefs and community programmes show the multiple benefits of localised and community-led green energy systems. These help avoid the corruption that comes with large fossil fuel projects, help to  preserve peace, and foster both socio-economy development and environmental resilience.