Nuclear plants feasible and needed urgently, says Molefe

ESKOM chief operating officer Brian Molefe said yesterday it was urgent and feasible for South Africa to obtain more nuclear plants.

“We think that a nuclear programme is feasible in South Africa because nuclear plants typically have a life of beyond 60 years and the payback period, irrespective of what the amount is, typically is about 20 years,” he told Parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises.

“So it is feasible to fund and operate further nuclear plants in South Africa and in fact it is urgent that we do so.”

Molefe was responding to questions from MPs about the government’s plans to procure additional nuclear energy capacity to add a projected 9 600 megawatts to the country’s electricity grid by 2030.

There have been warnings from the opposition, as well as the authors of the National Development Plan, that the country could not afford the cost, which has been estimated as up to R1 trillion.

In late October, the National Treasury indicated in the medium-term budget policy framework that it had set aside R200 million in preparation for implementing the nuclear energy expansion programme.

Molefe repeated that for the foreseeable future South Africa would not experience loadshedding after a run of 50 consecutive days without scheduled outages.

He said this was despite extensive maintenance being conducted at several plants, and more scheduled for the coming holiday season.

“Until April 30, we do not anticipate load shedding.”

Molefe was addressing the portfolio committee on Eskom’s financial results for 2014/15, which saw the struggling entity achieve net earnings of R25.2 billion.

Eskom executives said it had raised external funding of R49.5 billion last year which, along with an exceptional allocation of R23 billion from the government, would “assist in closing the funding gap and easing liquidity pressures”.

The company’s capital expenditure for the year came to R53 billion and progress on the new build programme, which relies on coal for generation, added 6 237 megawatts of generating capacity to the grid. Molefe took umbrage when the IFP’s Narend Singh suggested that tariff increases and electricity disruptions had left South Africans feeling “fleeced” by Eskom.

He reminded Singh that the National Energy Regulator, not the utility, determined tariffs.