Opinion
- South Africa’s long-awaited Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2025 was billed as a visionary blueprint for energy security and economic revival.
- Instead, it lands as another masterclass in political theatre—an elaborate performance designed to project control and competence, while offering little substance beneath the stage lights.
Dressed up in lofty rhetoric and delivered as a poorly formatted PDF, the IRP 2025 reads less like a strategic document and more like an election pamphlet—full of promises, contradictions, and recycled ideas that have already failed to deliver.
For all the talk of “energy sovereignty,” economic growth, and a cleaner future, the IRP’s core message is unmistakably regressive. It clings to coal, doubles down on costly gas, and resurrects South Africa’s nuclear daydream—while side lining the very technologies, like solar, wind and energy storage, that could secure affordable, sustainable power within this decade.
Perhaps the most audacious element of the IRP is its call for 5,200 MW of new nuclear capacity by 2039, including the revival of long-abandoned pebble bed and small modular reactor concepts. This nuclear ambition is a fantasy divorced from both fiscal and technical reality. South Africa simply lacks the financial resources, technical expertise, and institutional capacity to deliver projects of this scale without falling into the familiar trap of overruns, delays, and corruption.
Rather than learning from the past—think Medupi, Kusile, and the ill-fated Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project—the government appears determined to repeat history, this time with a green veneer.
The plan’s call for 16,000 MW of gas-to-power by 2039 is equally concerning. South Africa lacks domestic infrastructure for large-scale gas imports or distribution, yet the IRP proceeds as if this logistical and financial chasm doesn’t exist.
More troubling are the political undertones. The ruling party’s investment arm, the Batho Batho Trust, holds a majority stake in Shell South Africa’s empowerment partner, Thebe Investment Corporation. Given Shell’s interests in gas exploration and potential supply, questions arise about whose interests the gas push truly serves—South Africans, or politically connected shareholders? Read more
Related news: Supreme court denies Eskom authorisation to build 3000MW gas to power plant in Richards Bay
The IRP’s insistence on inflated “minimum load factors” for gas plants appears less about rational energy planning and more about securing lucrative procurement deals before the next election cycle.
Then there’s the persistent myth of “clean coal.” After decades of neglect, Eskom’s coal fleet is collapsing under its own inefficiency, corruption, and age. Yet the IRP still leans on unrealistic assumptions about coal plant performance and technological miracles that will somehow make them “clean.” It’s greenwashing of the highest order—designed to appease unions, coal lobbies, and regional political interests rather than solve South Africa’s power crisis.
A R2.2 trillion mirage
The plan’s promise of 105,000 MW in new generation capacity by 2039, carrying a staggering R2.2 trillion price tag—roughly 30% of South Africa’s GDP—sounds ambitious until one asks how it will be paid for. There is no credible funding plan, no transparent cost trajectory for consumers, and no clarity on how Eskom or the fledgling National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) will manage such an enormous buildout when both institutions are already overstretched and underfunded.
Key allocations in the plan leading up to 2030 include:
- 11 270 MW of solar PV.
- 7 340 MW of wind energy.
- 6 000 MW of gas-to-power.
- 5 200 MW of new nuclear capacity.
By 2039, South Africa aims to add 105 000MW of new generation capacity—effectively building Eskom “two and a half times” its current size. This includes:
- 25 000 MW of utility-scale solar PV.
- 16 000 MW of distributed (mostly solar rooftop) generation.
- 34 000 MW of onshore wind.
- 8 500 MW of battery storage.
- 16 000 MW of gas-to-power.
- 5 200 MW of new nuclear capacity, which could include small modular reactors and grow to 10000MW.
Link to the full IRP 2025 HERE
Private sector progress, public sector paralysis
Ironically, the only tangible progress in South Africa’s energy landscape is being made by private players—through wind, solar, and battery projects that are already adding megawatts to the grid. The IRP’s insistence that the “state will lead” this transition is pure political fiction.
Even as the NTCSA prepares to launch the Wholesale Electricity Market (SAWEM) in 2026—a genuinely reformist step toward liberalising the power sector—the transmission backbone needed to carry new generation remains woefully underdeveloped. The NTCSA’s own Transmission Development Plan admits South Africa must build 14,500 km of new lines within a decade just to accommodate future capacity. That’s a monumental task for an institution that has no moeny and is still finding its feet.
Ultimately, IRP 2025 is not a plan—it’s a political performance. It seeks to reassure voters that the state remains in control, even as reality tells a different story: Eskom is faltering, the private sector is driving renewables, and the government is clinging to nostalgia and patronage networks to preserve influence and control.
A credible energy roadmap would focus on accelerating coal decommissioning, expanding grid infrastructure, and unlocking private-sector-led investment in renewables, transmission and storage. Instead, IRP 2025 offers a costly fantasy, unmoored from technical, financial, or environmental realities.
South Africa deserves better—a plan anchored in transparency, pragmatism, and genuine commitment to transition. Until then, the IRP will remain what it has become: a political stage show masquerading as an energy strategy.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
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