For the engineers at Koeberg, running a nuclear power station is familiar work. Building one from scratch is another matter entirely. That gap in experience sits at the heart of South Africa’s plan to add 5200MW of nuclear capacity to the national grid, and it is ordinary households and manufacturers who stand to gain, or lose, depending on whether the country can close it.
Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, the Minister of Electricity and Energy, acknowledged the problem plainly at the South African Nuclear and Clean Energy Conference, held under the theme “Transitioning from Policy to Execution: Powering a Secure, Sustainable and Industrialised Future”. It has been roughly 50 years since the country last undertook a nuclear construction project, and the people who know how to build such plants are not available in abundance.
“I must admit that one of the biggest inherent risks in this program is that we have not built a nuclear power plant in the past 50 years or so,” Ramokgopa said. The staff at Koeberg, he noted, know how to operate an already built power station. What the country lacks are people who have built one before.
His answer is to grow that expertise at home. Working with international partners, the department intends to develop a pipeline of engineers capable of building a nuclear power station from the ground up. Experience will accumulate reactor by reactor, he argued, until the country can stand on its own.
The skills question is one of several practical hurdles the Minister addressed as he set out the path from policy to execution. Eskom, the state-owned power utility, has submitted its feasibility programme for the 5200MW nuclear build in line with the Integrated Resource Plan 2025, which lays out plans for new nuclear capacity. The department is now preparing a proposed determination for public participation, and Ramokgopa was firm that the consultation will be judged on evidence rather than ideology.
“The department is preparing a proposed determination for public participation. We will put the case for additional capacity before the public and consider submissions on their merits. It should not be an in-principle objection, an obsession with one energy technology over the other. It must be on the basis of merits, and merit is anchored on science and evidence,” he told the conference on Tuesday.
The publication of that determination is a statutory trigger for procurement. The National Nuclear Regulator will exercise independent authority over safety and licensing, while the Nuclear Energy Policy designates Eskom as the owner and operator of nuclear plants and provides for the utility to retain control under a public-private partnership.
Meanwhile, Ramokgopa drew a lesson from the country’s recent infrastructure history. The build programmes at the Kusile and Medupi coal-fired stations, he said, amount to “a template on how not to do things”. Government intends to learn from, and unlearn, those experiences so that the nuclear programme does not become a casualty of poor planning.
Underpinning the entire effort, he argued, is the country’s economic future. “South Africa needs enough electricity for the economy we intend to build. That means making provision for manufacturer to expand production, for new investment to connect and for households to gain access to a service they can afford.” An economy with too little capacity, he warned, pays for that shortage through higher cost supply and through production and investment that never takes place.
On the existing coal fleet, Ramokgopa said coal and nuclear can operate alongside one another. The department, working with Eskom, is reviewing each coal station on its own merits. Some may have a case for longer operation, while others will retire, with those decisions reflecting plant conditions, costs and applicable environmental requirements.
The case for nuclear, he concluded, rests on its dependability, low carbon profile and cost-effectiveness. It forms part of the capacity the country is developing to support growth and diversify supply. Whether the engineers of the next generation are ready to build it, reactor by reactor, is the question that will decide how soon households and businesses see the difference.