Minister of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe has called for the strengthening of performing power stations as he announced that the updated Integrated Resource Plan will be released next week for comment.
MINISTER of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe has called for the strengthening of performing power stations as he announced that the updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) will be released next week for comment.
Mantashe said performing power stations should not be decommissioned, but instead strengthened in the process to build new capacity.
Speaking at the BRICS Business Energy Co-operation forum on Saturday, held at Gallagher Estate in Johannesburg, Mantashe said next week the IRP was going to be released for comment on phases up to 2030.
An IRP is comprised of an assessment of the future electric needs and a plan to meet those future needs. The plan is intended to be updated every two years. Only two versions have been available to date. The initial plan was unveiled in 2010 and the revised plan was announced in 2019.
“Then we are going to have a second phase beyond 2030. Do comment on it because the IRP must help develop a journey that we are going to undertake.
“We are going to take your comment very seriously. That is where the policy direction will come from. We have to make sure our transition does not collapse. That is why in our IRP we have made provision even for coal,” Mantashe said.
He said provisions for nuclear, gas, renewables, solar, wind, hydro and all pathways have been made in the IRP.
“We think that a combination of them will help us navigate the transition more carefully and in a more reliable way.
“The load shedding we are having is a combination of two things. One is an assumption that we must quickly move out of coal without ensuring that the new (energy technology) replaces the capacity that was provided by coal. That is why the energy availability factor of individual power stations collapsed,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ebrahim Patel, said South Africa needed to be able to fix the performance of its coal-fired power stations.
“We need to expand our renewable energy plans using the combination of solar and our pump station capabilities. We need to be able to explore the new technologies in hydrogen, green hydrogen has the potential to be the most efficient energy source of the 21st century, just like oil and coal,” he said.
He said the BRICS summit would provide a platform for South Africa to learn from other countries about renewable and green hydrogen.
“China today has a growing portion of these energy companies in the form of renewable energy and is also the world’s leading producer of the components and technologies for green and solar energy, and so by talking to these large players the big companies were able to learn some things that the future of green energy will hold,” he said.
The upcoming 2023 BRICS Summit will be held in Sandton. It is an international relations conference attended by the heads of state of five member states: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
– BUSINESS REPORT
