- South Africa’s 2023 Draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is outdated, does not embrace new technologies plus has major flaws.
- The IRP provides a roadmap for meeting South Africa’s forecasted electricity demand in a way that is affordable and meets the country’s climate and economic goals.
- This is according to the country’s Electricity and Energy Deputy Minister, Samantha Graham-Marê, who was speaking at Parliament’s Portfolio Committee for Electricity and Energy meeting held yesterday.
- Graham-Marê also confirmed that an updated draft IRP is targeted to be Gazetted before the end of the 2024 (serve before Cabinet in October and published in November).
“We found that the modelling on the IRP was outdated. It doesn’t make allowance for new technologies particularly,” said Graham-Maré. The deputy added that the “IRP is very much overdue and then came out and we established there were major flaws with it and that was evidenced in the number of submissions made,” added Graham-Maré.
Meridian Economics has been scathing of approach, assumptions and methodologies employed in the drafting of the 2023 IRP while Business Leadership South Africa labelled the plan as ‘out of touch with reality’. Read more
Integrated Energy Plan
Last month South Africa’s Electricity and Energy Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has confirmed that the redrafted IRP will be in line with the country’s Integrated Energy Plan (IEP). Read more
The country’s Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) is expected to be finalised by the second quarter of the 2025/26 fiscal year according to Graham-Marê.
The Green Connection and SAFCEI launched legal proceedings in January 2023, to review the President’s failure or refusal to bring Section 6 of the National Energy Act (NEA) into operation. This is the part of the Act that requires that a proper Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) is developed for the country, in consultation with the public.
On 28 April 2023, the President finally published his decision to bring Section 6 of the NEA into operation in the Government Gazette – however, that proclamation only provides for Section 6 to come into effect from 1 April 2024. This follows more than two (2) years of unsuccessful correspondence by The Green Connection, with the President and Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, and now requires nearly another year of waiting before this law comes into operation, and the legal obligation on the Government to develop and publish the IEP arises.
SAFCEI’s Executive Director Francesca de Gasparis says, “We are calling for an energy plan, the IEP, that works for all South Africans and for the cessation of all government’s nuclear, gas and coal plans – which cannot exist in a truly just energy transition. We have had enough of these false solutions that harm us all and violate the rights of already-marginalised communities. Going forward, there can be no room for harmful energy in South Africa’s energy mix.”
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
