The Department of Energy (DoE) confirmed at the weekend that further nuclear vendor-parade workshops would be held with China, France, the US and South Korea during November.

The first such workshop, which was held in the Drakensberg in late October, was held with the Russian Federation and was attended by a number of officials from Rosatom.

The DoE said the workshops formed part of government’s technical investigation in preparation for a procurement decision and insisted that they were being pursued in line with the National Development Plan’s call for “thorough investigations on various aspects of the nuclear power generation programme before a procurement decision is taken”.

“As part of the pre-procurement phase and preparation for the roll-out of the nuclear new build programme, government has entered into several negotiations with vendor countries and has recently signed Inter-Governmental Framework Agreements with the Russian Federation, the French Republic and People’s Republic of China. South Africa also has signed Agreements with the US and South Korea,” the DoE said in a statement.

The workshops provided a platform for vendor countries to present their technology offerings and outline how, if selected, they would meet South Africa’s localisation, job creation and financial objectives.

Officials from various departments, State-owned companies and academia would attend the second workshop, which was expected to be with France and the Chinese.

The workshops come amid serious security-of-supply concerns, as well as against the backdrop of a warning by business that nuclear was not an immediate solution to overcoming the power shortfall.

There was also still uncertainty about the size and schedule for the introduction of additional nuclear into the electricity mix, owing to delays in finalising the updated version of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

The DoE indicated that the consultation were premised on the Nuclear Energy Policy of 2008, the Nuclear Energy Act 46 of 1999 and the IRP adopted in 2011, which called for the introduction of 9 600 MW of new nuclear capacity by 2030.

It also stressed that the consultations were with countries that had Pressurised Water Reactor technologies similar to the Koeberg plant, situated in the Western Cape.