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Electricity · Gauteng

Johannesburg

How often is it off? Who produces our power?

30.0%

of the electricity bought or generated was lost before it was sold in 2024-25. Treasury’s norm is 7% to 10%.

Official: Audited annual financial statements · Data as of 2024-25 financial year (audited statements) · Next update expected Jan 2027 (2025-26 annual reports) · Last updated

Compare all eight metros: Electricity. An asterisk marks a figure our automated checks found inconsistent with another official figure; it is shown as reported, explained in a footnote and left out of rankings.

Electricity lost before it is sold

Official: audited annual financial statements · Data as of 2024-25 financial year (audited statements) · Next update expected Jan 2027 (2025-26 annual reports) · Last updated

Electricity a metro buys or generates but never bills: technical losses in the network, theft and faulty meters. Treasury’s norm is 7% to 10%.

What these words mean
Distribution losses
Water or electricity a metro buys or produces but never bills: leaks, theft, illegal connections and faulty meters.
Treasury norm
A target National Treasury sets for every municipality in MFMA Circular 71, so metros can be compared on the same scale.
Electricity lost in distribution · 2024-25

30.0%

Treasury norm: 7% to 10%

Share of electricity bought or generated that is lost before it is sold.

Note: includes the metro’s utility company.

Source: Johannesburg’s audited annual financial statements.

Power outage notices

Official: City Power (Johannesburg's electricity utility), outage notifications · Data as of see each notice’s date · Updates: checked daily · Last updated

692 power interruption notices from Johannesburg since 1 Jan 2025; 498 named places we could match to wards.

Wards named most often (2021 boundaries), notices since 1 Jan 2025
Ward 10458Ward 10255Ward 12453Ward 8647Ward 7043Ward 10636Ward 9835Ward 8934Ward 11033Ward 7432

Latest notices

Places are matched by their Stats SA Census 2011 names, longest name first, with no guessing; a name we cannot match is listed for checking and not linked to a ward. Notices before 1 Jan 2025 are not included. Where a metro publishes no notices, residents can report an outage (community reports, unverified).

Load shedding by year

6 948 hours in 2023, against 1 656 hours in 2024. It last happened on 26 Mar 2024, by the CSIR’s count.

Independent source: CSIR Energy Centre, Utility-scale power generation statistics in South Africa 2024, page 69. The CSIR estimates these from Eskom’s announcements; not an official statistic, and not used in our rankings. The report. Data as of 2024 (latest annual report) · Updates: the CSIR publishes once a year.