19 May (NucNet): South Africa will start the process to procure a nuclear fleet of six to eight new nuclear reactors this year, with the first likely to begin commercial operation in 2023, energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said today.
Ms Joemat-Pettersson said that to meet its targeted nuclear generation capacity of 9,600 megawatts, South Africa plans to build six to eight new nuclear power plants by 2030 at a cost of up to about €75 billion ($84bn).
“We expect to present the outcome of this procurement process to cabinet by year-end,” Ms Joemat-Pettersson told Parliament, adding that the exercise would be carried out in a “fair and transparent” manner.
The nuclear power process will be owned and managed by state-owned power utility Eskom and potential bidders for the construction of the plants include France’s Areva and EDF, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, Korea Electric Power Corporation, and Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom.
The Department of Energy has said South Africa, which has one commercial nuclear power station with two units at Koeberg, plans to add the new reactors to the grid by 2030 with the first beginning commercial operation in 2023, well in time for the retirement of the country’s aging coal fleet. According to the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), the two Koeberg units accounted for about five percent of the total electricity generated in the country in 2012.
In September 2014, Russia and South Africa signed an intergovernmental agreement that laid the foundations for the construction of new nuclear units in South Africa. At the time, Rosatom said it might build up to eight reactors in South Africa.
The agreement provided for the construction of Russian VVER nuclear power units with a total installed capacity of up to 9,600 MW. If construction goes ahead, the reactors will be the first units based on Russian VVER technology to be built on the African continent.
South Africa has also signed nuclear energy deals with other countries, including France, China, South Korea and the US.
Ms Joemat-Pettersson said South Africa would also reestablish its nuclear fuel cycle industry. She said this would include developing domestic uranium enrichment and conversion plants as well as nuclear fuel production sites.
South Africa first started producing uranium in 1952. In the late 1970s and early 1980s South Africa was ranked the second or third largest producer in the world, but output “declined significantly” and by 2010 South Africa ranked 12th in global uranium production, the NEA said. Peak production was achieved at over 6,000 tonnes a year in the early 1980s when it accounted for 14 percent of total world output.
