SA eyes R60bn nuclear revival, but renewables still lead the charge

Key topics:

• SA plans R60bn nuclear programme with global expert help

• China seen as key partner in South Africa’s nuclear ambitions

• Renewables remain fastest, cheapest fix for power crisis

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By Daniel Puchert*

South Africa plans to spend R60 billion on its nuclear build programme, most of which will not come from the fiscus, the Sunday Times reports.

The country’s electricity and energy minister, Kgosientsho Ramogkopa, said South Africa is busy looking for nuclear experts from around the world to assist in affordably building nuclear capacity at scale.

This forms part of Ramokgopa’s goal of restoring South Africa’s nuclear build programme, the credibility of which he says had been eroded in recent years due to procurement and administration concerns.

The minister said that the programme must have a capacity of at least 10GW to be deemed credible by the country’s energy market.

Regarding the cost of building capacity at this scale, Ramogkopa said South Africa would need upwards of R12 billion to register the programme.

He also noted preliminary studies by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) revealing that it will cost at least R60 billion, which he says “will never come from the fiscus.”

Ramokgopa told the Times that if South Africa were to consult experts for the programme, the US, China, Russia, France, and South Korea would respond. “The successful bidder would be from one of these countries,” he said.

The minister alluded to a potential partnership with China, pointing out that it will be seeking raw materials for nuclear fuel enrichment and that they “are already our partners.”

He also highlighted that China accounts for 27% of all nuclear reactors under construction and plans on bringing 70GW of nuclear capacity into operation over the next two years.

While constructing new plants is a priority, Ramokgopa also focused on extending the longevity of South Africa’s only nuclear capacity.

He pointed to the recent success of extending Koeberg Unit 1’s operation by another 20 years, which his department hopes to achieve for the nuclear plant’s Unit 2 reactor.

Necsa chair Dave Nichols told the Times that Eskom is also planning to procure two additional large reactors, similar to those at Koeberg.

New nuclear unlikely

Despite Ramokgopa highlighting South Africa’s impetus to acquire new nuclear capacity, energy expert Chris Yelland said this is unlikely to be realised in the near future.

“There’s a lot of talk about technologies such as small modular reactors, but the reality is that right now they are not commercially available and not licensed,” he said.

“We don’t know the prices of these technologies, so there’s still some way to go, maybe a decade or 15 years before these become an option for South Africa.”

Yelland argues that, given the infeasibility of technologies such as nuclear and gas, wind and solar power generation are the most efficient ways of addressing South Africa’s capacity shortage.

This was in response to an earlier statement from Ramokgopa, who said South Africa was focused on adding to the energy mix rather than subtracting from it.

“The only game in town right now is wind, solar PV, and battery energy storage because that’s what’s financeable and can be delivered quickly,” Yelland said.

“The Minister was clear that the significant majority of the new generation capacity is going to be from renewable energy, but that does not mean that the end of coal is about to happen,” Yelland added.

A recent report by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) found that the cost of procuring independently produced renewable capacity has decreased dramatically since the first bid window.

Solar energy decreased from R2.75 per kWh during the first bid window to R0.50 during the sixth, whereas wind decreased from just over R1 to R0.50 per kWh.

This article was first published by the MyBroadBand and is republished with permission