South Africa could have a new nuclear power station operational by 2020, and still has an aspiration to add some 20 000 MW of nuclear capacity over the coming decades, Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said on Friday.

However, a specific date for the building of the second nuclear power generator would only be set after the finalisation of an integrated resource plan (IRP), she told journalists on the sidelines of a seminar on nuclear energy.

Peters noted that the IRP would be finalised after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, which is taking place in Copenhagen next month.

“We will be releasing the IRP immediately after Copenhagen, we will then be finalising our IRP, and within the IRP, you would then have the exact indicator of when South Africa would want to see the nuclear plant kicking in.”

She added that the IRP would be placed before Cabinet in February.

Power utility Eskom had terminated the procurement process for the multibillion-rand Nuclear 1 project late last year, after the company’s board decided that it could not make an investment decision to proceed, owing to financial pressures.

Eskom operates South Africa’s only nuclear plant – the 1 800 MW Koeberg station – in the Western Cape.

Meanwhile, Peters said that the Department of Energy was investigating the re-establishment of the complete nuclear fuel cycle in order to achieve a sustainable programme and to obtain the potential economic benefits.

“In this regard, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa is currently conducting feasibility studies.”

The nuclear energy expansion programme would also require specialised skills, Peters said. This required nuclear technical capacity such as engineers and scientists, as well as the consolidation and coordination of education, training and development initiatives to produce the number of skills required for the programme.

Peters estimated that the building the next generation nuclear fleets would create around 70 000 direct jobs in the South African economy. “This figure will be much higher if we include about 300 000 indirect jobs that will be created throughout the entire nuclear value chain.

“This has the possibility to be done at the same time as we launch the country’s single biggest post-apartheid training programme, where we will be able to train about 77 000 people,” she added.

South Africa has been struggling, as a country, to create an industrial base that had the potential to be apart and parcel of the international supply chain of much larger industrial players, Peters noted.

“If there is an industry that is capable of doing this, it is the nuclear industry.”

Peters noted that the country was currently entering an intensive capital investment programme, in terms of which about 40 000 MW of new capacity would be required over the next 20 years. However, she noted that there would be energy security considerations that would have to be taken into account when looking at the options open for this new build.

“There are question marks as to whether renewable energy would be able to fulfil the base load capacity requirements at all. There is no doubt, therefore, that the undisputed base load options that are available to us as a country are coal, nuclear, demand-side management initiatives, and renewable energy sources.”

She added that programmes were currently under way to include 10 000 GWh of renewable energy by 2013, the introduction of one-million solar water heaters by 2014, and the introduction of energy efficiency initiatives.

“A key consideration in the risk adjustment process relates to the assumptions that we have to make in relation to the commissioning of the new generation capacity on schedule. Eskom has indicated that Medupi will be commissioned before the winter of 2013, and Kusile will follow soon thereafter.

“We are not oblivious to the fact that should there be any delay in commissioning these two plants, consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate. This adds impetus to the need to accelerate the introduction of the independent power producers.”