South Africa going nuclear

Nuclear power will be central to South Africa’s future energy plans, providing affordable, clean energy for the country’s baseload requirements.

This is according to Department of Electricity and Energy deputy director general for nuclear, Zizamele Mbambo, who said the Nuclear Seminar hosted in Tshwane on Thursday, 12 September, provides an excellent opportunity for the country.

“The main focus of the discussions here is discussing the role of nuclear energy as part of the energy mix in South Africa,” Mlambo told SABC News.

“Nuclear is a central part of the South African electricity mix to provide baseload electricity. It provides one of the cheapest electricity generation options.”

“We are implementing an energy mix, and nuclear is part of the energy mix that South Africa is going to implement to ensure that we’ve got a secure and sustainable energy solution for the country,” he added.

He said the seminar has given Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa the opportunity to engage with key stakeholders in the nuclear space, including providing ideas for a sustainable solution to South Africa’s energy crisis.

In January 2024, Ramokgopa gazetted a new determination, kicking off a process to procure 2,500MW of new nuclear power for the country. The plan was taken from the previously approved Integrated Resource Plan 2019.

Several months later, he said a team was at the advanced stages of completing the procurement structure for the nuclear power station, with plans to publish details of the bidding process by the end of August 2024.

However, the plan was put on ice in mid-August to allow for more public participation and boost transparency.

“We carry the responsibility of ensuring that this process that we’re undertaking is subject to the highest levels of public scrutiny,” he said.

“The last thing we want is to do a major build program on the back of suspicion that the department and government is hiding something from the public.”

The country’s private sector also wants to bring new nuclear capacity online, albeit in significantly smaller steps.

Two small modular reactor (SMR) firms have plans to build additional nuclear capacity in South Africa.

SMRs claim to be intrinsically safe and cannot melt down like large reactors due to their lower power and natural passive cooling systems, which can function without power.

One company, Koya Capital, recently entered into an agreement with Stratek Global to raise R9 billion to build South Africa’s first High-Temperature Modular Reactor (HTMR-100) by 2029.

The HTMR-100, developed locally, provides up to 35MW of generation capacity without needing a sizeable body of water to cool reactors.

This means it could be deployed almost anywhere in the country to directly supply towns or industrial users without having to expand South Africa’s transmission network capacity.

Lack of capacity on South Africa’s transmission networks has hindered the country’s renewable energy plans — an issue SMRs say they could sidestep.

Whereas many independent power producers want to build solar power plants in the Northern Cape and wheel electricity to more populated areas, SMRs can be deployed near to where their energy is needed.

The HTMR-100 reactors can be grouped individually, in pairs, fours, or larger collections.

US-based X-energy could also enter the South African market with its Xe-100 Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). The team behind the reactor’s development includes two former Eskom PBMR engineers.

Each reactor can provide up to 80MW of generation capacity and be grouped in fours to form a 320MW power plant.

In November 2023, it was revealed that André Pienaar’s C5 Capital was working to raise another R9 billion through private investment to build such a plant in the Western Cape.

It is envisioned to be one of nine stations that will add 1,800MW of generation capacity over the long term.