16 Sept (NucNet): South Africa’s energy minister Dipuo Peters has signed off on a proposal for up to six new nuclear reactor units and plans to present it to the country’s Parliament soon.
Ms Peters said in a statement that she expects cabinet to approve the plan by the end of the year and the bidding process to start in 2012.
She said the first electricity from new nuclear plants would come online in 2024 or 2025.
Previous plans had called for additional nuclear generation by 2023, but Ms Peters said that had been put off “a year or two” because of revisions in the wake of the accident at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan.
The original plans said that if South Africa is to meet energy security, climate change and cost targets, it will need an energy mix that includes 14 percent baseload nuclear – an increase of nine percent from the current five percent share – by 2030.
South Africa’s only commercially operation nuclear units are the 900-megawatt pressurised water reactors Koeberg-1 and -2. They began operation in 1984 and 1985 respectively.
>>Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
South Africa’s Future Lies With Nuclear, Says Industry Group (News No. 59, 29 March 2010)
South Africa Will Say ‘Yes’ To Nuclear, Says Energy Minister (News in Brief No. 125, 16 July 2010)
