South Africa's power utility is out looking for new customers. Eskom is preparing to be unbundled and to give up its dominance in generating and transmitting electricity, and it wants new ways to make money as it does. Its chief executive, Dan Marokane, told Bloomberg Television where he thinks that money is: data centres, Bitcoin miners, electric vehicle charging stations and more power sold across the border.
That is a change of tune. Eskom has previously been uneasy about plans to split it into separate generation, transmission and distribution businesses. Now Marokane calls the reforms irreversible, and says Eskom has "really abandoned the notion of owning everything or doing everything by ourselves". Executives were meeting this week to agree on what the company should look like at the end of it.
Why Eskom needs new buyers
The short answer is competition. More generators are coming into the market, and Marokane expects more distributors and traders to follow them. By his count Eskom still provides in excess of 85% to 90% of the country's electricity, but newcomers are chipping away at that share, and with the economy not growing, it can only shrink. His plan is to use Eskom's strengths on offerings others may not be able to give.
It also has power to spare. After years of load shedding the supply has stabilised, and Marokane puts Eskom's excess generating capacity at three to five gigawatts. Not all of that is down to Eskom running better: plenty of businesses and households have installed solar panels and batteries of their own.
Data centres, Bitcoin and the copper belt
Data centres are the most concrete of the new markets. Marokane says Eskom is well positioned to supply more of them in South Africa and is already working with developers. It also wants charging stations for electric vehicles across the country, Bitcoin miners as customers, and a bigger role supplying renewable energy to companies chasing sustainability targets. For now, most of its power still comes from a fleet of ageing coal-fired stations.
Exports are already moving. Drought in Zambia doubled the size of the southern African power pool, Marokane says, and Eskom has supplied the copper belt for mining expansions. He also sees "big interest in the Congo" in some of that spare power.
None of this is a deal yet. Marokane named no partners, prices or dates, and the strategy session he described was about agreeing what Eskom looks like once it no longer has to do everything itself.
