Ahigh-ranking Russian nuclear industry delegation is to visit South Africa in early February and hold talks with senior South African officials.

The Russian delegation will be headed by the director-general of State-owned nuclear energy group Rosatom, Sergey Kirienko, who is expected to meet with Energy Minister Dipuo Peters and her top officials. The Russians will also hold meetings with top executives from national electricity utility Eskom – the operator of South Africa’s only nuclear power plant (NPP) – the National Nuclear Regulator and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (better known as Necsa and the operator of the country’s only research reactor).
Rosatom is one of the overseas groups seeking to participate in South Africa’s proposed new NPP build programme. The Integrated Resource Plan 2010 foresees the country building NPPs with a total capacity of 9.6 GW by 2030. To this end, Rosatom’s international arm, Rusatom Overseas, has set up an office in South Africa.
To support Rosatom’s efforts, the Russian government is offering to conclude an intergovernmental agreement with its South African counterpart. This agreement could include financial and technological guarantees for the construction of Russian NPPs in this country. These issues are likely to be among those that the Russian delegation will discuss with the South Africans.
There are precedents for the Russian proposals. In Turkey, Rosatom is completely financing the construction of that country’s first NPP, the $20-billion four-reactor Akkuyu plant. This is a ‘build, own, operate’ project, which will start off 100%-owned by Rosatom through a local subsidiary company, the Akkuyu NPP company. Over time, Rosatom’s equity in Akkuyu will decline to 51%, with Turkish shareholders acquiring 49%.
The electricity generated by Akkuyu will be sold to Turkish electricity transmission and distribution company Tetas. This company will buy 70% of the output of reactors 1 and 2, and 30% of reactors 3 and 4 at a fixed price of 12.35 US cents per kilowatt hour until 2030. The Russian group will also be responsible for decommissioning the NPP at the end of its life. The Akkuyu programme is covered by a Russo-Turkish intergovernmental agreement signed in May 2010.
Earlier this month, the Russian government announced that it would provide $500-million financing for the early stages of Bangladesh’s first NPP, at Rooppur. The Rooppur NPP will be built by Rosatom group companies, will have two reactors and will be operated by the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission. This project is also covered by a bilateral agreement between the two governments.
Russia will be offering South Africa latest (third- or third-plus) generation reactor designs. The Russian third-generation reactor design is the VVER-1200, while the VVER-1200A is a third-generation-plus design. ‘VVER’ is a Russian abbreviation equivalent to ‘PWR’ (pressurised water reactor). Somewhat con- fusingly for outsiders, the Russians have separate designations for the NPPs and for the reactors they contain. Thus, the AES-2006 NPP design is composed of two VVER-1200 reactors.
A VVER-1200 has an output of 3 200 MWt, 1 200 MWe gross and 1 170 MWe net. Both VVER-1200 and VVER-1200A reactors have designed lives of 60 years. Just four such reactors could supply half of South Africa’s planned 9.6 GW nuclear capacity.