Energy Minister Dipuo Peters will on Thursday offer insight into the much-anticipated integrated resource plan (IRP), which will set the framework for future energy supply in South Africa.

Drafts of the IRP have been circulating for months, and some of the contents from earlier versions have leaked into the public domain.

There has been some anxiety about the centrality of coal-fired and nuclear solutions in the plan, while potential independent power producers (IPPs) have expressed concern about the dominant positioning of Eskom projects.

In its media invitation, delivered on Wednesday, the Department of Energy indicated that Peters would outline the IRP's approach to the following issues:

• The development and commercialisation of renewable energy, in particular, concentrated solar power.
• The development of a nuclear strategy to provide a low emission base-load alternative to coal-fired generation from 2020.
• The continued investment in the maintenance and refurbishment of the existing Eskom plants to ensure performance at assumed levels.
• And, continued investment in demand-side management initiatives, including the expected load reduction stemming from the department's targeted roll-out of 1-million solar water geysers by 2014.

However, no mention was made of the pressing issue of the IPP allocation under the IRP, nor whether the plan would provide certainty on the issue of electricity importation. Previous versions of the plan had reportedly included proposals for the importation of power from countries such as Botswana and Mozambique.

It was also not immediately apparent whether the plan would be fully aligned to the revised version of Eskom's tariff application, which placed far greater emphasis on private power generation and the injection of private equity into Eskom projects.