INTEGRATED RESOURCE PLAN 2023: DRAFT OUT FOR COMMENT

Please note: 1) According to Mineral Resources & Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, the deadline for comment on the draft plan has been extended to 23 March 2024. The Minister made this announcement on 5 February 2024 in a speech at this year’s ‘investing in mining in Africa’ indaba. 2) On 12 February 2024, the Department of Mineral Resources & Energy issued a media statement confirming the new deadline. 4) On 5 November 2024, a statement identical in wording to one released on 5 January 2024 was republished on the National Government website. Featuring the original 23 February 2024 deadline, it has nevertheless not been posted on the department’s website and may therefore have been republished on the National Government website in error. There has been no response to an email requesting clarity from the department itself.  

The latest iteration of government’s energy sector integrated resource plan (IRP) has been gazetted in draft form for public comment. The deadline for input is 23 February 2024.

A section of this somewhat technical document giving context to what is envisaged refers to a ‘living plan … expected to be regularly reviewed as necessitated by changing circumstances’. Over four years have passed since it was last published, although the draft iteration now in circulation is dated 2023.

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, the statement refers to two time horizons in the plan:

  • 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’.

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