Department seeks to ‘reset the role and place of nuclear', boosts SA regulation budget

Daily Maverick

23-04-2025

The Department of Electricity and Energy is laying the groundwork for a future with a lot more activity in South Africa's nuclear sector, according to its most recent strategic plan.
Languishing in the wake of the controversial 2015 Russian nuclear deal, South Africa's nuclear sector prospects have largely remained inert. That is all set to change according to the newly formed Department of Electricity and Energy's (DEE) most recent strategy that seeks to conclusively revitalise an increasingly energised sector.
Not everyone is convinced or on board, however.
Presenting the strategy to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy on Wednesday, 23 April, DEE acting Director-General Subesh Pillay explained that one of the Department's strategic priorities is to 'reset the role and place of nuclear'.
In November 2024, Minister of Energy and Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa stressed that nuclear energy would be a crucial part of South Africa's energy mix in the future and that activity was under way to re-energise the country's nuclear capacities.
'We think that we need to exploit our skills, exploit the accumulated knowledge with regard to nuclear technology over a period of time, and that's the case we're making to Cabinet,' he said at the time.
The path to making that happen became a bit clearer on Wednesday when the DEE told MPs that it intended to spend at least 23% of its R20.7-billion budget over the Medium‐Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) on 'Nuclear Energy Regulation and Management'.
This amounts to roughly R1.543-billion for the 2025/2026 period, which is a 41% increase over the previous year.
This would be for nuclear regulation and management, including oversight of existing facilities, nuclear safety and feasibility planning for future builds – not direct investment in nuclear power plants.
Speaking to Daily Maverick in a committee meeting room on Wednesday, Pillay confirmed that this could be read as the department laying the groundwork for much more activity in the nuclear space. He qualified this by saying that a part of this large jump had to do with developments at the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa).
Research generator
'There's a research reactor [ at Necsa, called Safari ] and it's reached end of life. It's got about 10 years left so they're moving to closing Safari down and simultaneously, we're now building the next iteration of research generator, and that's why you had this big jump, because National Treasury has allocated R1.2-billion for that build programme over three years.'
This, he explained, formed the bulk of that jump in spending. But it was not the entire story.
Pillay agreed that the department was also laying the groundwork for a future with more electricity generated by nuclear energy.
'It's essentially that because at two levels, you must build the capability to increase your nuclear stock. When you do that, you must build the capability to regulate, so there has to be a correlation between the growth of nuclear use and the ability to regulate the nuclear sector,' said the acting DG.
Not everyone was pleased with the broad strokes outlined about the nuclear component in the department's strategy.
DA MP Kevin Mileham asked, in reference to the outdated 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2019), 'What analysis has been done about the scale and pace of nuclear procurements that South Africa can afford?'
'What analysis has been done on 'pace and scale' because I'm not seeing anything about that. I haven't seen feasibility studies. I haven't seen any demand profiles – nothing.'
Mileham also pointed out that the strategy had assumptions that were based on some documents that don't yet exist.
'You talk about Nuclear Master Plan. You talk about Gas Master Plan. You talk about IRP 2025. Throughout this document, you're basing targets for this financial year on those three documents. But not one of those documents actually exists at this point.'
'They have not been approved by Cabinet; they have not been approved by the minister. So how are you determining a target that's based on a document that doesn't exist?' he asked, pointedly.
ANC MP Fasiha Hassan also pointed out some gaps in the information. 'We need an update on the Nuclear Master Plan… We also need to see the progress on the nuclear new build – where are we with that?'
Daily Maverick previously reported that at the end of 2023, Ramokgopa announced that all the 'suspensive conditions' to start procuring 2,500MW of new nuclear power 'immediately' had been met. However, in August 2024, he temporarily withdrew plans to procure new nuclear power, following a 'substantive' legal challenge by the Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute and Earthlife Africa Johannesburg.
Feasibility report
Lerato Makgae, Chief Director of Nuclear Policy at the department, provided an update and a response to members' questions.
'In terms of progress on the new nuclear build, as mentioned, we are working on the feasibility report for the nuclear build programme, which is encompassing a lot of information. Issues around the licensing, issues about skills development, looking at different technologies, whether it's large conventional plants that are being built in other countries, as well as SMRs (small modular reactors).'
'Right now, we noted that there are more than 80 designs of SMRs, which are in different stages of being commissioned. So we are monitoring that. The construction times would be in our feasibility report at the department, together with the nuclear entities and other government departments. Issues of 'pace and scale' would also be addressed in that feasibility report,' Makgae said.
On the mooted Nuclear Master Plan, Makgae said the department was at an 'early phase of the development' and promised to report on it quarterly.
Not everyone welcomed the news.
One of the people who shed light on the opaque and allegedly corrupt Russian-South African nuclear deal pushed under the Zuma administration was Makoma Lekalakala. She is the director of Earthlife Africa JHB, an environmental justice activist anti-nuclear organisation and one of the organisations that forced Ramokgopa to pause the more recent plans for nuclear procurement.
Also noting the language in the IRP 2019, committing the government to only pursuing nuclear energy 'on a scale and pace the country can afford', she asked, 'Is the country at an economic state to afford nuclear energy reactor construction?'
'We can't lock the country in any debt we cannot afford. Eskom's Medupi and Kusile costs have escalated more than threefold – the nuclear build might even be tenfold.' DM