This paper presents the first analysis of the relationship between migration and energy poverty in South Africa. We make use of a unique five wave panel, the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), spanning a period of 10 years and in which migrants can be tracked in each wave to explore the changes in energy poverty associated with both rural-urban and urban-rural migrations. The South African case is interesting given the co-existence of both high levels of grid coverage (close to 90%) with high rates of poverty (50% poverty headcount) and high rates of traditional fuel use in rural areas and townships. Our empirical approach is based on a difference in differences approach. Recognizing that migration in South Africa, as in other African countries, is a multifaceted phenomenon, we explore both rural-to-urban and urban-to-rural migration. While circular or oscillating migration between the two is also common in South Africa, we choose to restrict the analysis to mono-directional migration in order to facilitate a discussion of the role of these permanent movements in the energy transition. The use of panel data allows us to control for forms of unobserved fixed individual heterogeneity that may be associated both with both the decision to migrate and energy outcomes, such as risk aversion or fixed individual preferences. We extend this by controlling for a range of observable variables correlated with migration and use propensity scores to match individuals in our preferred specification. Finally, we exploit what we argue is random variation in the time of migration in the period of the panel and can thus compare the energy related outcomes between early and later migrants.