Government is “deepening the conversation” on the draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2023).
So said electricity and energy minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, speaking yesterday during the 2024 Windaba Conference, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The main purpose of the IRP is to ensure security of electricity supply necessary by balancing supply with demand, while considering the environment and total cost of supply.
This, as South Africa continues to pursue a diversified energy mix that will provide security of supply, while ensuring compliance with its emission reduction plan.
“We are doing a review. [IRP 2023] had gone out for public consultation − received 4 000 submissions; 250 of those have been substantive – and I said to the team, we will sit with those who have made substantive contributions, so we are not re-opening the window of public consultation.
“We are simply deepening that conversation because some of the submissions raise issues around the assumptions and the modelling, and therefore how you arrive at the aggregate of the [energy] mix.
“It is in our interest as government to listen to the sector and the experts…because beyond these ones who adopt it, it’s an IRP that represents the country.”
The minister added that those engagements seek to address some “quantitative expressions” in some aspects of the plan.
Turning to the renewable energy sector, Dr Ramokgopa emphasised that the department is engaging with all stakeholders in the energy sector, to find solutions for South Africa’s energy ambitions.
“It is our intention to ensure that we scale up the renewable energy share of the energy mix in the country. We have had conversations with the nuclear sector. We have had conversations with the gas players. We have had conversations with those in the renewable energy space [and] we will have conversations with those in the coal space.
“It’s important that we move away from an idea that the one solution is better than the other,” he said.
With regard to South Africa’s commitment to lowering carbon emissions, the minister said the country wants to “green the South African economy”.
However, that transition must take into consideration the effects it may have on certain sectors.
“There are the socio-economic elements. So, as we do this, we’re looking to broaden the floor of industrialisation – reskilling people, skilling people so that there’s justice in the just transition.
“You don’t want to decimate an economy because you want to transition, put people into conditions of abject poverty because they are unemployed as a result of the displacement of certain technologies being replaced by others and not taking account of what are the implications from a socio-economic point of view,” Ramokgopa said.
Share