People power: Off-grid communities light up

In Nomzamo, an informal settlement in the coal heartlands of Mpumalanga, energy is no longer something handed down from Eskom. Families relocated here after floods in 2016 power their homes through modular solar systems.

What makes Nomzamo different is not only the technology, but the principle of energy ownership. Instead of being consumers of a distant utility, residents have gained control of their own energy requirements.

As national utility Eskom prepares to launch its renewable energy subsidiary, called GreenCo, communities like the one in Nomzamo — which means “resilience” — are testing a different idea that a just transition is not only about megawatts, but about who owns the power.

In places where the national grid dips or fails, neighbourhood-scale solar, batteries and microgrids are lighting streets, running shared freezers and keeping micro-enterprises alive.

#PowerTracker data shows at least six significant community off-grid projects are now running across five provinces. They range from the Upper Blinkwater hybrid mini-grid in the Eastern Cape to solar home systems in Western Cape informal settlements, remote villages in the Northern Cape and university-led pilots in Limpopo and Gauteng. Together they form a patchwork of approaches, some utility-backed, others community-driven, with varying scales and ambitions.

Nomzamo is on the edge of Ermelo, a town that once thrived on coal mining and fossil fuel energy generation. Yet here, in the shadow of 12 power stations scheduled to close by 2035, including Camden in just two years, households remain in the dark.

Statistics South Africa data shows that more than half a million households in the area still rely on candles for lighting, 161 000 burn paraffin and nearly 29 000 have no source of lighting at all. For many around Ermelo, rolling blackouts are routine; for others, access to grid electricity is a dream.

A community born from crisis

The Nomzamo settlement was born from climate disaster. When floods swept through low-lying parts of Ermelo in 2016, hundreds of families were uprooted.

Local organisations and community leaders negotiated for a slice of disused mining land to resettle the displaced. Nomzamo was established on former mining ground, highlighting the complex relationship between extractive industries and community displacement in Mpumalanga.

By 2017, Nomzamo consisted of 441 households and 1 478 people, but there were no basic services: no electricity, piped water, sanitation or waste removal. Residents describe those early years as a “double displacement”, first by floods, then by government neglect.

Zethu Hlatswayo, chair of the Khuthala Environmental Care Group, a non-profit organisation based in Ermelo, told Oxpeckers that residents began mapping out survival in the new settlement through a participatory process called We Design.

“The We Design process brought residents together to prioritise services. Energy poverty was identified as the biggest challenge,” Hlatshwayo said.

To ground decisions in evidence, 36 residents were hired to survey Nomzamo’s needs and job prospects. The results painted a bleak socioeconomic picture: unemployment at 56%, nearly nine out of 10 households living on less than R3 500 a month and a large share of income literally burnt on candles and paraffin.

The survey further showed that families were spending an average of R300 a month just on lighting and were paying neighbours or spaza shops to charge their cellphones. In a community where food and transport already stretched budgets, energy poverty was the most crippling expense.

Nomzamo leaders used the survey data to draw in external partners, including international embassies, GreenCape — a not-for-profit company that facilitates the adoption of economically viable green economy solutions — and eventually technology provider Peco Power.

Hlatswayo stressed that the project’s DNA was collective: “Every step, from choosing service providers to deciding on household contributions, was taken together. People now not only have light, but ownership,” he said.

That ownership was underwritten by external support. International embassies and foundations invested R2.8 million to subsidise household energy systems, with a further R720 000 directed to communal services, streetlights, refrigeration and business power.

The modular solution

Professor Willie Cronjé, from Wits University’s School of Electrical Engineering, has specialised in renewable energy systems for more than a decade with a focus on rural electrification. He is the founder and technical director of Peco Power, which develops modular energy solutions for Africa.

Cronjé introduced the company’s PowerBrick system to Nomzamo in April 2024. Each modular system runs off solar power and batteries.

“You plug the system together like Lego bricks. On a certain day you can add more solar, on another day more battery. As the needs develop, you can change it,” Cronjé said.

He said he had developed the PowerBrick system with the aim of creating technology that can survive in rural African conditions while being affordable and scalable.

A simple household unit is capable of powering two indoor lights, one exterior light, charging a phone and powering a radio. More than 400 homes in Nomzamo were using the unit when Oxpeckers visited the site in August 2025.

“Residents pay R99 a month for one year and then, once paid off, they own the unit outright. Previously, they spent anywhere from R300 to R800 a month on candles and paraffin,” he told Oxpeckers. “There are no recurring fuel costs, because you run from the sunshine.”

The technology allows a flexibility not seen elsewhere, he said. “What is unique with our system is that it is so modular. We can have lead and lithium batteries mixed into the same system. You can mix old and new batteries, large and small batteries. There is nothing like that on the market.”

Community engagement

In Nomzamo, the project not only tested the hardware but also developed the community engagement model.

“Nomzamo gave us a really good opportunity to do that because we were dealing with community leadership. We trained members of the community as champions and they became the first responders. If somebody has a problem, they can talk to one of the champions, who then guides them through the steps,” Cronjé said.

An impact report on the project published earlier this year records that at least 22 locals have received training in skills such as basic electrification, first aid, entrepreneurship, marketing and leadership.

Six locals are directly employed by the project, five additional community members were hired during the refrigeration infrastructure construction phase and 10 residents now manage the community refrigeration services.

Beyond the household

The model extends beyond basic household supply. Ten communal solar-powered fridges, each with additional battery capacity, have transformed food storage.

Before the project, residents purchased perishable food items daily to avoid spoilage or relied on daily trips to friends and family in nearby electrified communities to store food.

The community refrigeration project serves 34 households per freezer, with each freezer operator earning R1 020 per month. For R30 a month, households can rent 15 litres of refrigerated space, according to the impact report.

Residents like Happiness Tshabalala described the transformation in her daily life: “We used to suffer without electricity, and when my child had to study, I often had no money for candles. Now, my child can study and watch TV. We are saving money because we buy food in large quantities and use the community fridges.”

Community safety has also improved, she said. “The crime rate has decreased since it is no longer dark. The part I enjoy most is that when the rest of Ermelo is dark from load-shedding, our informal settlement has its lights on.”

About 60 streetlights have been installed to enable spaza shops and small businesses to operate for longer hours and to encourage community gatherings in well-lit public spaces. Community patrols report that crime has dropped so much that their role has become less necessary.

The benefits extend into education. The community’s high school achieved a 100% pass rate in 2024, with students able to study under reliable light for the first time. The impact report states that 66.9% of community members with the Peco Power system recorded improvements in study time compared to studying by candlelight.

Eskom’s parallel path

While Nomzamo experiments with bottom-up ownership, Eskom is preparing a renewables push at an entirely different scale. The utility is in the process of establishing Eskom Green, or GreenCo, as a standalone renewable energy business.

In April, the national utility issued an invitation to tender for firms with a proven track record in establishing renewable energy businesses to assist with creating the new unit over a 12-month period.

“Eskom Green is being established as a standalone renewable energy business, focused on solar PV, wind, battery storage, hydro and pumped storage. The new entity forms part of Eskom’s turnaround strategy to pivot towards a sustainable, competitive and low-carbon future, while ensuring security of supply,” Eskom’s media desk said in response to questions from Oxpeckers.

The company said the plan is ambitious: “Eskom Green will deliver 2 gigawatts of construction-ready renewable projects by 2027, scaling up to 32GW by 2040 as more coal-fired stations reach the end of life and are repowered or repurposed.”

Several projects are already under development and at the tender stage, the media desk said. “These have been developed to a bankable feasibility stage, with grid access applications, [environmental impact assessments], resource studies and licensing processes aligned with independent power producer standards. Future projects will also be developed at brownfield coal station sites such as Hendrina, Grootvlei, Arnot, Camden and Komati, which provide existing infrastructure, grid connections and community integration to accelerate delivery.”

The company’s renewable energy initiatives include the development of containerised microgrids at the retired Komati power station near Middelburg. Two assembly lines have built 17 microgrids, which offer energy access in remote areas, efficient energy management and integration of renewable energy sources such as solar.

In August, Eskom also announced its “first-ever renewable energy offtake programme” to sell solar PV energy from its own sites to large customers.

While Eskom is driving forward with repurposing and repowering projects, it remains unclear when these initiatives will ultimately launch. “Repowering and repurposing projects will gradually transition to Eskom Green once the entity is fully operational,” the media desk told Oxpeckers.

Different paths

The contrast between the Nomzamo project and Eskom’s green drive highlights two very different paths. One is a community-led, incremental model that creates ownership and local skills. The other is a centralised, large-scale strategy aimed at grid stability and national supply.

Hlatswayo insisted both scales matter. “Energy transition should be about social ownership,” he said, but he acknowledged that national capacity must also grow.

Local generation, Hlatswayo said, is not only a way to provide electricity but also a means of building skills and resilience. “People who have paid for their systems own them now — they will never pay for energy again.”

“Energy transition should be about how to make sure that these people who were trained are going to train others in other informal settlements and other rural areas,” he said.

Cronjé argued that the philosophy of ownership is crucial. “They [Eskom] typically want to install something because they keep charging you forever. And our experience in these communities is that people do not want to be beholden like that.

“They would rather own it. That brings energy freedom, in the sense that you do not need the Eskom grid,” Cronjé said.

Find details of off-grid and community energy projects on our #PowerTracker tool here

A mini-dataset compiled for this investigation of off-grid energy projects is also available on our Get the Data section.

This investigation by Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism was supported by the African Climate Foundation’s New Economy Hub.