Johannesburg - The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) wanted the government to put the brakes on the proposed nuclear build programme until the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) was updated, the lobby group said yesterday.
Outa’s move adds to speculation that the outdated IRP is one of the main reasons for the delay in the release of the long-awaited request for proposals (RFP) for the nuclear build programme.
The Department of Energy has missed two of its own self-imposed deadlines for the release of the RFP this year.
The IRP has been a bone of contention as critics argue the government cannot continue to rely on the plan when most of the assumptions on which it rests may have shifted.
The plan, promulgated in March 2011, determines the long-term electricity demand and details how this demand should be met in terms of generating capacity, type, timing and cost.
The plan was supposed to be subjected to regular reviews in order to improve its accuracy.
According to the Department of Energy, the IRP was supposed to be a “living document”, which would be revised every two years.
Outa said that it had written to Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the Presidency, the National Treasury and the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) on Monday, demanding the government put on hold its plans for the nuclear programme until the IRP was “credibly” updated and subjected to public input.
Legal requirement
Outa said an annually updated IRP was a legal requirement under the National Energy Act. Since the act came into effect, the Department of Energy only published two versions of the IRP, one dated 2010 and a second dated 2013, but which was not signed off by the minister of energy, leaving the 2010 document as the legally viable option for planning electricity use, it said.
“As civil society, we would like to remind the minister that an updated IRP should be based on current demand trends feeding into forecast models, as well as the inclusion of updated pricing of all available energy technology options,” Outa chairman Wayne Duvenage said.
The plan made provision for the installation of 9 600 megawatts (MW) of nuclear capacity, 6 300MW of coal and 17 800MW of renewable energy by 2030. But it is the proposed nuclear build programme that has attracted the most controversy. Other than speculation about its costs, there are question marks about whether there is enough electricity demand to justify baseload nuclear capacity.
Speaking ahead of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s delivery of the medium-term budget policy statement last month, National Treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile said the IRP continued to guide energy activities and decisions in the country.
Meanwhile, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown yesterday accepted Mike Pamensky’s request to step down as the non-executive director of Eskom.
“I intend submitting my recommendations to Cabinet soon and strengthening the Board to ensure that the trend we have seen from Eskom’s mid-term results continues,” said Brown.
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