Eskom reported net profit after tax of R30.3 billion for the year to 31 March 2026, more than double the R14 billion of a year earlier and its second consecutive annual profit after eight years of losses.

Revenue rose 4.1% to R354.7 billion, EBITDA climbed 10.9% to R108.6 billion, and net debt fell R45.3 billion to R313.3 billion. Load shedding ran to four days and 26 hours across the year.

Three things lifted earnings. A 12.74% standard tariff increase applied through the year. Better station reliability meant far less diesel burnt in open-cycle gas turbines, one of the highest costs of the load-shedding years. And financing costs fell as debt came down.

Working against that, electricity sales dropped 6.2% on weak industrial demand, embedded self-generation and efficiency gains, and Eskom now expects two to three gigawatts of surplus capacity over the next few years.

Chief financial officer Calib Cassim says it has to turn that into sales, because take-or-pay coal contracts oblige it to burn the coal anyway, so it is offering discounted tariffs to large industrial customers including smelters on three- to five-year terms. Three numbers temper the headline: a non-cash fair-value and currency charge fell from R10.5-billion to about R1-billion, flattering the comparison by roughly R10-billion; R15.8-billion of revenue went unrecognised over collectability; and municipal arrears passed R111-billion.

Employee benefits rose from R48 billion to R50.4 billion, putting the average salary per employee at R1,164,672 across a headcount of 43,274. That figure has grown roughly 44% in three years, from R35 billion in 2023/24. How many SA companies can you name where that happened recently?

Production bonuses rose 33.34% to R1.6-billion, and the short-term incentive obligation went from R4.2-billion to R5.1-billion. Bargaining unit staff, about 81% of the workforce, took a 7% cost-of-living adjustment in July 2025. NUM and Solidarity have accepted a flat 7% a year from July 2026 to June 2029. NUMSA rejected it, and the dispute goes to the CCMA.

Eskom says its remuneration philosophy is built to attract and retain skilled staff, with pay set against the median market value of each role. Business Day reported that Eskom does not intend to borrow at all in the 2027 financial year, funding capital spending from operations and existing facilities. TechCentral noted Fitch upgraded Eskom's local currency rating to B+ in June and that auditors issued a qualified opinion on the completeness of irregular expenditure.

Eskom has spare power and a reason to sell it cheaply. Take-or-pay coal means idle capacity still costs money, which is why smelters are being offered discounts. If your operation has real load, this is the moment to ask what a three- to five year discounted tariff looks like.

It also explains the interest in data centres, from the GPU build in Centurion to MTN's 150MW plan, because a data centre is the constant industrial load Eskom is short of. The harder question is the wage bill.

A 7% annual increase locked in to 2029, against sales falling 6.2%, means the cost of every unit sold keeps rising while there are fewer units to sell. That gets recovered through the tariff, which is to say from you.

You might also like our piece on what the surge in South African M&A says about investor appetite, why South Africa's business regulation is more restrictive than China's, and what the Big Mac Index rand figure says about input costs.

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