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An updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is in the works and will soon be released for comment, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe has confirmed.
Responding to a question posed to him in Parliament on Tuesday, Mantashe said: "Regarding the IRP update, the rough IRP framework has been completed - it is going to be opened for discussion. We are late, we [initially] said end of March. It is now going to happen now. We're pushing very hard on it."
The IRP is an electricity infrastructure plan which aims to provide an indication of the country's long-term electricity demand, how this demand will be supplied and what it will cost.
The plan has proved contentious because, as was the case in 2019, political considerations have interfered with the lowest cost model – which overwhelmingly favours renewable energy – allowing for problematic technologies like new coal power and hydropower from the Democratic Republic of Congo, neither of which look likely to materialise.
While the IRP2019 does not allocate capacity for new nuclear power, it does make mention of it the need to plan for additional nuclear power given the long lead times for this technology. This has opened the way for Mantashe's department to progress preliminary work on a 2 500MW nuclear power programme.
The DA's Kevin Mileham has been vocal in his critique of the delay in releasing a new plan, especially amid unprecedented load shedding. "Without an updated IRP, South Africa will be forced to continue relying on the outdated energy assumptions of IRP 2019 do not reflect what must be done to address the ongoing electricity crisis," Mileham said in a statement earlier this year.
The plan is intended to be updated every two years, but there have only been two versions to date – the first 2010 plan and the revised plan, which was promulgated in 2019.
Mileham noted that updating the IRP was one of the key performance targets that Mantashe agreed to but has so far failed to achieve.
Mantashe noted the IRP 2023 would follow four years after the last plan.
"That is the most regular revision of the IRP than any time before, so it will come," the minister said.
