Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa plans to meet experts in civil engineering and nuclear energy to seek solutions to what he calls the two biggest risks to South Africa’s energy plan: a subdued construction sector and the loss of nuclear technical knowledge.
The electricity and energy minister briefed parliament’s portfolio committee on electricity and energy on the recent 2025 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). The IRP was approved by cabinet last month and was gazetted in full last week.
He said the IRP has a R440bn programme for transmission line expansion and a R2-trillion programme for IRP projects that have the potential to resuscitate the construction sector, which has not seen any major projects since the 2010 FIFA World Cup stadiums and the Medupi and Kusile coal-powered plants.
“The biggest risk to this plan is not money. Money is not our problem. I think there’s an insatiable appetite from the domestic market and international market players to invest in this programme. Two big risks stand as you can see them, and I see them as two huge opportunities.
“The first one is that the industry has collapsed. So, if you come to think of it, I always make the reference that when I graduated as a civil engineer, we had what you called the big five [projects]. So none of those are left. I think the last one that was closed was just the other day.”
The 2025 IRP envisages new generation capacity in the 2026-30 pipeline, including 6,000 MW of new gas-to-power by 2030 for critical energy security, 3,700 MW of battery storage, 7,300 MW of wind and 10,300 MW of solar PV.
The minister maintained that the plan’s R2.2-trillion price tag would not fall squarely on the fiscus, saying investor appetite to get involved is strong and that a credit guarantee vehicle to be introduced by July next year will assist with the costs.
He said the second risk to the IRP’s aims was the skills gap, especially where they relate to nuclear technology for technical projects such as the delivery of pebble bed reactors and small modular reactors.
“On the nuclear side, we have not done anything of significance, so when you start to build, you will see that you are running short of these skills and the kind of engineers that are required. You need people who have done the work or who have got on-the-job experience at the highest level.
“And the fact that the economy has not been growing [and] our gross fixed capital formation, as a proxy for investment, suggests that we are far from the ambition of 30% of GDP [of gross fixed capital formation]…for us to achieve those aspirational targets that are in the NDP, including that the economy must grow 5.5% year-on year.”
He said the department planned to meet with academics and directors in civil engineering and the built environment to gain technical insight on how to develop the infrastructure development strategies in which the IRP and the nuclear industrialisation plan will find expression.
“On the back of this, we are also going to ensure that we are delivering in relation to our reindustrialisation of the South African economy…just to ensure that there is readiness to execute these plans.
— Electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa
“I’m scheduled to meet with the executive directors of the schools of engineering and built environment, so that we can share with them what the picture looks like, and then they will also tell us what they think, because these are experts. It’s required for us to align the work that we do with those conversations.”
He said nuclear was an important segment for the South African economy to explore, adding that much of the technical knowledge that has fed nuclear energy initiatives in markets, including the US and China, originated in South Africa.
“We are working on a nuclear industrialisation plan to ensure that we are able to achieve this. So [the IRP] is a R2.2-trillion investment, about 30% of the size of the South African economy, if you assume that the size of the South African economy is R7-trillion.
“On the back of this, we are also going to ensure that we are delivering in relation to our reindustrialisation of the South African economy … just to ensure that there is readiness to execute these plans.”
He said challenges, including a prolonged lack of energy infrastructure development, were similar to South Africa’s greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force, which was lifted late last month, in that both were self-inflicted problems that South Africa could get itself out of through firm cooperation.
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