Johannesburg  - Electricity bills in South Africa will jump a whopping 135 per cent over the next three years if state electricity utility Eskom gets its way.

Eskom on Tuesday confirmed it wanted the state to give the go- ahead for an increase in electricity tariffs of 45 per cent every year for the next three years.

South Africa has traditionally enjoyed some of the cheapest electricity in the world. Eskom is now looking to hike tariffs to pay for a massive capital expansion programme.

South Africans are already paying 31 per cent more this year for electricity.

"It's going to be painful but it's an unavoidable adjustment for us to secure our future," Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga said.

South Africa, like many southern African countries, is woefully short on energy.

Cities across the country were repeatedly plunged into darkness in the winter of 2008 as demand outpaced supply, causing Eskom to implement "loadshedding" or rationing. The outages forced the country's gold mines to cease production for several days.

The situation eased this year as South Africa tipped into recession and industry particularly began using less power.

To secure supply in the long-term, Eskom has embarked on a 383- billion-rand (52 billion dollar) power-plant building and refurbishment programme.

Even if the tariff increases are approved by the state energy regulator, Eskom still faces a cash shortfall of 30 billion rand (4 billion dollars), Maroga said.

Eskom gets almost 90 per cent of its power from ageing coal-fired power stations, making South Africa one of the world's biggest per- capita greenhouse gas emitters.

At a conference on solar energy in Johannesburg this week, Maroga announced it was planning to build a 100 megawatt solar power plant in the Northern Cape at a cost of 6 billion rand.(dpa)