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In this article we take a look at the electricity distributed for use per province per month, as reported by Statistics South Africa. So which province in South Africa uses up the most electricity? Is it a large mining province such as North West, or a populous province such as Gauteng?
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Electricity distributed per province
The summary below takes a look at the relative contribution each province made to total electricity usage in South Africa in April 2019. With the supply grid being strained and one never being sure when loadshedding will kick in again, are big users such as mines, or household users cutting back and affecting the contribution each province makes to the total? We cant imagine this being the case, but we will take a look at the growth in electricity usage over the last year in a while, but below the contribution the various provinces made to total electricity usage during April 2019
- Gauteng: 25.07%
- KwaZulu-Natal: 18.75%
- Mpumalanga: 15.63%
- North west: 12.92%
- Western Cape: 10.00%
- Limpopo: 6.68%
- Free State: 4.29%
- Eastern Cape: 3.97%
- Northern Cape: 2.69%
Gauteng uses by far the most amount of electricity of any of South Africa's provinces. In a distant second place is KwaZulu-Natal, with the third place being a surprise which is Mpumalanga. Clearly electricity usage is not correlated with economic size as the Western Cape is South Africa's third biggest province in terms of economic size, yet only the 5th biggest electricity user of South Africa's nine provinces.
The below shows the relative contribution of each province to South Africa's total economy (as per our article a few months ago), and as can be seen below and the summary above, electricity usage is not necessarily linked to economic size it seems:
While Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal are the biggest electricity users and two biggest contributing provinces to South Africa's total GDP, one should keep in mind that they are the two provinces with the highest populations in South Africa too. According to the 2018 mid year population estimates Gauteng maked up 25.5% or 14.7 million of the total population of South Africa which is at 57.7 million, while KwaZulu-Natal made up 19.7% or 11.4 million out of South Africa's 57.7 million people. The Western Cape and Eastern Cape coming in in 3rd and 4th place respectively in terms of population numbers.
This leads us to believe the large amount of electricity being used in Mpumalanga and North West is due to mining. With Mpumalanga being known for its coal mining industry and the North West being known for its platinum mining.
So as we mentioned at the start of the article, we will take a look at the growth in electricity usage over the last year per province. The summary below shows the year on year growth rate in giga-watt hours used per province:
The Eastern Cape recorded the highest increase in electricity usage over the last year, with it being 5.97% higher in Aprl 2019 than what it was in April 2018. North West province is the only province that used less electricity than 12 months ago. Is it a sign of declining activity in the mining sector, especially the platinum mining sector? We saw with the publication of the latest GDP data that the mining sector declined substantially in the first quarter of 2019 when compared to the last quarter of 2018. Is this a sign that the second quarter miming activity might not be picking up anytime soon.
The below shows the relative contribution of each province to South Africa's total economy (as per our article a few months ago), and as can be seen below and the summary above, electricity usage is not necessarily linked to economic size it seems:
- Gauteng: 34.82%
- KwaZulu-Natal: 16.05%
- Western Cape: 13.86%
- Eastern Cape: 7.53%
- Mpumalanga: 7.25%
- Limpopo: 7.20%
- North West: 5.91%
- Free State: 5.20%
- Northern Cape: 2.20%
While Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal are the biggest electricity users and two biggest contributing provinces to South Africa's total GDP, one should keep in mind that they are the two provinces with the highest populations in South Africa too. According to the 2018 mid year population estimates Gauteng maked up 25.5% or 14.7 million of the total population of South Africa which is at 57.7 million, while KwaZulu-Natal made up 19.7% or 11.4 million out of South Africa's 57.7 million people. The Western Cape and Eastern Cape coming in in 3rd and 4th place respectively in terms of population numbers.
This leads us to believe the large amount of electricity being used in Mpumalanga and North West is due to mining. With Mpumalanga being known for its coal mining industry and the North West being known for its platinum mining.
So as we mentioned at the start of the article, we will take a look at the growth in electricity usage over the last year per province. The summary below shows the year on year growth rate in giga-watt hours used per province:
- Eastern Cape: 5.97%
- Mpumalanga : 4.53%
- Free State: 3.83%
- Northern Cape: 2.49%
- Western Cape: 2.29%
- Limpopo : 1.32%
- Gauteng ; 1.21%
- KwaZulu-Natal: 1.09%
- North West : -2.51%
The Eastern Cape recorded the highest increase in electricity usage over the last year, with it being 5.97% higher in Aprl 2019 than what it was in April 2018. North West province is the only province that used less electricity than 12 months ago. Is it a sign of declining activity in the mining sector, especially the platinum mining sector? We saw with the publication of the latest GDP data that the mining sector declined substantially in the first quarter of 2019 when compared to the last quarter of 2018. Is this a sign that the second quarter miming activity might not be picking up anytime soon.