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Organised business in the Eastern Cape breathed a collective sigh of relief after the National Energy Regulator rejected Eskom's application for a 16& a year tariff hike for the next five years.
Instead, Nersa said Eskom could hike its tariff's by 8%.
Eskom's Hillary Joffe says they still need to study the Nersa ruling and its impact on the power utility.
But, the Nersa decision was warmly greeted by both the Borde Kei Chamber of Business and the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, which campaigned against the Eskom proposal.
Les Holbrook of the Border Kei Business Chamber said its good news and a relief to big manufacturers who use a lot of electricity.
"One of the very good things about this is the amount of lobbying that went towards this issue and that Nersa as a regulating authority really showing that it listened," he said.
Meanwhile, his counterpart in the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, Kevin Hustler, said eight percent is a relief to the business community.
"Obviously there's detail behind this which we need to still study. The next hurdle will be the municipal increases on top of that. So, were are engaging with the municipality as early as tomorrow (Friday) and taking part in the Nersa processes on municipal tariff increases in the near future," said Hustler.
