South Africa’s National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) has approved a 20-year life extension for the 924 MW Unit 1 of the Koeberg nuclear power plant, located near Cape Town in western South Africa, allowing the reactor to operate until July 2044. However, the NNR has deferred a life extension decision on the 930 MW Unit 2 until late 2025, since an assessment of the second reactor’s safety case is still ongoing.
In January 2024, the NNR had agreed to Eskom’s request to separate the Unit 1 and 2 licences to align with their respective commercial operating dates, with Unit 1 having started operating in July 1984 and Unit 2 in November 1985.
The 1.9 GW Koeberg nuclear power plant is the only currently active nuclear plant on the African continent and produces about 5% of the South Africa’s electricity. In December 2023, South Africa’s Ministry of Electricity announced that it would start a procurement process to develop an additional 2.5 GW of nuclear capacity in the country, based mostly on Small Modular Reactors.
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