Minister of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe has announced that they will release the Integrated Resources Plan next week and called on the public to make submissions.
The IRP was last updated in 2019 and Mantashe said the new IRP will be for 2030.
It will give direction on the energy policy that government will implement.
However, Mantashe, who was speaking at the BRICS Business Energy Cooperation forum on Saturday, said South Africa still prefers energy mix as its policy.
He said in his discussions with his counterparts from BRICS countries they cannot hasten the decommissioning of existing coal power fleet before they have fully implemented renewable energy projects.
There has to be a balance between coal and renewables.
He said the country must not to start to decommission performing coal-fired power stations.
“We should not decommission performing power stations. We should strengthen them and in the process build new capacity.
“We are in the process of reviving the Integrated Resource Plan. Please comment on it. Next week we are going to release it for comment phase up to 2030 then we are going to have a second phase beyond 2030. Do comment on it because that IRP must help develop a journey that we are going to undertake. We are releasing it next week. Please do comment on it, 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 us. That is why in our IRP we have made provision even for coal. We have made provision for nuclear, gas, renewables, solar, wind, hydro and all these pathways. 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 energy availability factor of individual power stations collapsed,” said Mantashe.
Mantashe also said they need to expand transmission lines.
He said they will need about R210 billion to expand transmission lines.
This would help to accommodate renewable energy projects.
Already there were 66GW of energy projects in the pipeline.
Ramokgopa said they will need to partner with the private sector to expand transmission lines.
This was reiterated by Mantashe on Saturday that the private sector would have to come on board in expanding transmission lines.
Mantashe told the forum that when the transmission lines were developed the focus was in Mpumalanga because it was the coal belt with almost all the power stations located there.
“The third point we should focus on is transmission. Transmission lines were developed strong in Mpumalanga because energy generation was in Mpumalanga.
“We didn’t develop transmission for the Northern Cape where the potential for the renewables is high. We will have to develop that transmission. We didn’t develop sufficient transmission in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, which are the coastal provinces which are strong with wind. That is the backlog that we must focus on in investing. The private sector can partner with the state in developing those transmission lines,” said Mantashe.
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