In a bid to progress its contentious nuclear build programme and increase the contribution of nuclear energy to the country’s overall energy mix, government reiterates it is in talks with various prospective nuclear vendors over nuclear technologies that could potentially be implemented locally.

As part of the “preprocurement” phase and preparation for the roll-out of the nuclear build programme, government had entered into several negotiations with vendor countries, having recently signed intergovernmental framework agreements with the Russian Federation and France, as well as additional nuclear-based agreements with the US and South Korea.

Moreover, it had held consultations with several nuclear vendor countries – including Japan and China – that had implemented pressurised water reactor nuclear technology, similar to that used at the Koeberg nuclear power plant, in the Western Cape.

Government said Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson was expected to sign nuclear cooperation agreements with China in the first week of November and with Japan at a later stage.

“The National Development Plan enjoins us to do thorough investigations on various aspects of the nuclear power generation programme before a procurement decision is taken.

“Planned vendor parade workshops form part of government’s technical investigation in preparation for a procurement decision,” the Department of Energy (DoE) said in a statement on Monday.

The department added that it planned to hold vendor parade workshops with all vendor countries that were ready and had accepted the invitation to participate.

The vendor parade workshops entailed vendor countries presenting their nuclear technology offerings.

“The platform is created for vendor countries to showcase and demonstrate their capabilities on how they plan to meet South Africa’s needs. This will assist South Africa in its procurement decision-making process. The first workshop will be held before the end of October, starting with the Russian Federation,” the DoE outlined.

Government officials from various departments and academia involved in nuclear and engineering programmes would attend the workshop.

The DoE’s announcement was welcomed by the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa), which described the recent signing of intergovernmental agreements with various vendor countries as marking an important step towards the implementation of an energy mix that included new nuclear power generation.

“The nuclear power expansion seeks to deliver a modern nuclear generation fleet, which will ensure a low-cost and low-carbon base-load electricity supply for decades to come,” commented Necsa chairperson Mochubela Seekoe.