APA-Pretoria (South Africa) The South African government plans to build nuclear power plants to supply 2,500 megawatts of electricity to help it overcome existential blackouts that have bedevilled the country’s power generation in the recent years, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.
Electricity Minister Kogisentsho Ramokgopa told journalists in Pretoria that ministry plans to procure 2,500MW of new nuclear generation capacity over the next four years.
“We are starting the process of gazetting, so we are triggering essentially a procurement process,” Ramokgopa said.
He added: “We are going out to ensure that we are able to get that additional 2,500MW of nuclear capacity to ensure that we are able to meet the issues of national security and energy sovereignty.”
However, the ministry’s deputy director general of nuclear power Zizamele Mbambo said the more realistic timeframe for the first of the new units to start supplying power was 10 years.
Mbambo said the country had already requested “different vendors” for proposals on the building of the nuclear plants.
Africa’s only nuclear power station, the Koeberg plant near Cape Town, was currently working at half capacity due to a unit being shut down this week for refurbishment while another unit was shut down for a year to extend its life by two decades, he said.
The country is going through daily power cuts of up to 12 hours a day and this has hit the economy negatively, tarnishing the government’s reputation as it heads for general elections next year.
NM/jn/APA