INTEGRATED ENERGY RESOURCE PLAN: NEW SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE CONFIRMED

The Department of Mineral Resources & Energy has issued a media statement confirming that stakeholders now have until 24 March 2024 to make submissions on the draft energy sector integrated resource plan (IRP), which was gazetted on 4 January 2024. This follows Mineral Resources & Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe’s recent announcement of a decision to extend the deadline, which featured in his opening address at this year’s ‘Investing in Mining in Africa’ indaba.

Approved by Cabinet on 8 December 2023, the draft plan’s key points are summarised in a media statement issued at the time. Among other things, it referred to two time horizons:

  • a 2030-time horizon:
    • focusing on addressing prevailing generation capacity constraints, and
    • comprising ‘five scenarios … developed and assessed based on the state of readiness of projects in the pipeline’, and
  • a 2031 - 2050 time horizon focusing on ‘an analysis of the energy mix pathways for sustainable security of supply’.

According to a page on the Department of Energy website providing an overview of the purpose of an IRP, it:

  • ‘is a subset of the Integrated Energy Plan’
  • ‘directs the expansion of … electricity supply over … (a) given period’, and
  • identifies the electricity sector investments required ‘to meet … forecasted demand with the minimum cost to the country’.

It ‘is not a short or medium-term operational plan’.

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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