Eskom
electricity utility in South Africa
Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African state-owned electricity public utility. Eskom was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) (Afrikaans: Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM)). The organization represents South Africa in the Southern African Power Pool.
The utility is the largest producer of electricity in Africa, and was among the top utilities in the world in terms of generation capacity and sales. It is the largest of South Africa's state owned enterprises. Eskom operates a number of notable power stations, including Matimba Power Station and Medupi Power Station in Lephalale, Kusile Power Station in Witbank, Kendal Power Station, and Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in the Western Cape Province, the only nuclear power plant in Africa.
The company is divided into Generation, Transmission and Distribution divisions, and together Eskom generates approximately 95% of electricity used in South Africa, amounting to ~45% used in Africa, and emits 42% of South Africa's total greenhouse gas emissions. By releasing 1.6 million tons of sulphur dioxide into the air in 2019, Eskom is also the largest emitter of sulphur dioxide in the power industry in the world.
Eskom has periodically implemented rolling blackouts since January 2008, a practice ascribed to basic dereliction of duty by former president Thabo Mbeki which were later discontinued in early 2024, but electricity supply issues still linger. Implementation of new generating capacity during this period was fraught with delays and cost overruns which brought the utility to the brink of bankruptcy.
“Eskom” enters the record as electricity utility in South Africa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Eskom, electricity and utility can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1367885. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923, 2019, 2008 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eskom” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.