Russian nuclear group Rosatom is confident that it could supply nuclear-generated electricity to the South African market from Generation III+ pressurised water reactors (PWR) at a price significantly below that of coal-, oil- or gas-generated electricity. Rusatom International (a unit of Rosatom) regional VP: sub-Saharan Africa Viktor Polikarpov cited figures released by authorities in India that power generated by a new-generation Rosatom VVER nuclear power plant now operating in that country cost $0.06/kW. (VVER is the Russian designation for a PWR.)

“We can target a price of six [US] cents a kilowatt [in South Africa],” he affirmed. “Our electricity is a lot cheaper.” (The Indian figures showed that electricity generated by nuclear power plants designed and built by other nuclear companies produced electricity at prices ranging from $0.10/kW to $0.19/kW.)

“We are seriously considering South Africa as a potential market. We want to be here, we want to be in the market,” he said. Regarding baseload power, the country had two options. “Either you go with hydrocarbons or you go nuclear. Renewables can be part of the energy mix but they can’t close the gap of the huge amount of power the country requires today.”

Rosatom can offer, depending on South Africa’s requirements, either VVER1000 or VVER1200 reactor designs (the designa- tions indicate roughly the output of the different types – the VVER1000 is just below 1 000 MWe and the VVER1200 just below 1 200 MWe). If South Africa keeps to its previous plan to acquire 9.6GW of nuclear power (the Integrated Resource Plan is currently being revised and could cut this figure), then that could be met by eight VVER-1200s.

Currently, Rosatom is building 28 VVERs around the world and bidding on another 22. Currently, 72 nuclear power reactors are being constructed worldwide, which means that the Russian group has almost 39% of the global new construction market.

Rosatom sees South Africa as a country with the expertise to properly evaluate nuclear technology and programme proposals and as a country that is well developed and has a strong industrial capability. “We see no problems in partnering with South African companies,” he assured.

In terms of executing a major nuclear new build programme in South Africa, Rosatom can offer three main alternatives. These are an engineering and procurement contract (as selected by China and Iran, for example); Rosatom becomes a shareholder in the project and owns part of the local nuclear generating company (as in the case of Finland); or a build, own, operate (BOO) project. Under the BOO model, Rosatom would finance the entire project and own and operate the nuclear power plants until the customer country has repaid the Russian group.

Separately, Rosatom is also able to offer a new research reactor to the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (better known as Necsa) to replace its current Safari-1 unit, which has a capacity of 20 MW and is now 49 years old. For a long time, one of the main functions of Safari-1 has been the production of irradiated material (known as targets) for Necsa subsidiary company NTP Radioisotopes to process into radioisotopes for use in medicine and industry. Necsa is extending the life of Safari-1 for about ten years, but hopes to replace it with a new 15 MW to 20 MW multipurpose reactor.

“We’ve had very preliminary discussions with [Necsa] specialists,” reported Polikarpov. Necsa must first finalise its strategy. “We’ll be ready to make our offer. But another inter-governmental agreement will have to be signed [to cover such a deal].”