Eskom Courts Crypto Miners with Tariff Discount Amid Surging Electricity Prices

South Africa's power utility Eskom is offering cryptocurrency miners a tariff discount to offset losses in sales due to high electricity prices. The plan is to let flexible-load customers, including miners, use the country's excess electricity at a reduced price.

Eskom expects 2028 to be a watershed year for its operations and anticipates having five terawatt-hours (TWh) of surplus energy. This is enough to power about 450,000 average South African households for an entire year.

The utility's proposal includes a benchmark tariff of R1.20 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for participating customers, with the goal of testing whether a differentiated tariff structure can encourage consumption during periods of surplus electricity availability.