Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
The government aims to release its official blueprint for how the country will produce electricity over the next decade at the end of September, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has said.
The Integrated Resource Plan 2023 will outline the state’s plans for new power plants and how much electricity is expected to cost.
At his regular weekend briefing on the state of Eskom, Ramokgopa said that the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) would draw up the plan’s energy mix.
While Ramokgopa’s office has been given the power to determine what sources of energy the country will use, he said it made sense to rely on the DMRE’s plan, which has been a long time in the making.
“The DMRE has been running this process … for a long time. So, we will allow that to unfold to the point that it gets out to the public domain for public comments
“We don’t want to stop-start the process because suddenly powers are assigned to you,” he said.
Ramokgopa also said that “one or two things” needed to be “firmed up” before he would give a specific date for the plan’s release. He promised to provide more details at his next briefing.
Opposition parties have been ramping up pressure on the government to release the plan, with the DA saying its release was delayed by “factional politics within the ANC”.
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