The government of South Africa has unveiled a draft blueprint of its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), that foresees the first additional nuclear power plant coming online in 2037, i.e. 14 years after an earlier proposal of 2023. Additional power capacity, lower electricity demand forecasts, technology changes and the rand strengthening against dollar have incited the government to update its power projects and to scale back its nuclear programme.
South Africa now plans to develop 20,385 MW of nuclear capacity between 2037 and 2050, according to the IRP base case. Only 1,359 MW would be added by 2037, compared to the previous plans to develop eight reactors, with a combined capacity of 9,600 MW, between 2023 and 2029, for a total investment of US$37-100bn investment. This programme was deemed too ambitious on timescale and unnecessary.
The IRP also plans to add a further 37.4 GW of wind and 17.6 GW of solar capacity by 2050.
Interested in Power Plants?
Enerdata has developed a market research service to screen, monitor and analyse the development of power generation assets.
Power Plant Tracker offers an interactive database and a powerful search engine covering power plants worldwide – including both installed and planned capacities for renewables and fossil fuels.