Pretoria - Government has successfully concluded its second nuclear vendor parade workshop with China, France, South Korea and the United States.
The vendor countries sought to showcase and demonstrate their countries’ capabilities to a large South African contingent of senior technical officials from government, state owned entities and academics, according to the Department of Energy.
The nuclear vendor parade comes as South Africa plans to implement 9 600 MW (9.6GW) nuclear power capacity.
South Africa’s nuclear energy policy was given the green light in 2008 and was further enhanced by the approval of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2010 - 2030, which stipulates that nuclear power will form part of the country’s energy mix to a level of 9 600MW.
“The vendors made presentations on their offerings for the full nuclear value chain including areas such as the technology uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, localisation and industrialisation, power generation, safety and licensing, job creation, research and development, skills transfer and development.”
To date, government has engaged all vendor countries with whom Intergovernmental Framework Agreements have been concluded.
Vendor parade workshops were held with countries which chose to and were ready to engage in this manner having signed the Intergovernmental Framework Agreement as a requirement.
“The conclusion of this vendor parade marks a significant milestone in the government pre-procurement phase for the roll out of the nuclear new build programme. Going forward government will design and launch a procurement process,” said the department.
It said government remains committed to ensure energy security for the country, through the roll-out of the nuclear new build programme as an integral part of the energy mix as articulated in the Integrated Resource Plan 2010-30 and to keep the lights on in a sustainable manner.
Earlier this month, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson signed an Inter-Governmental Framework Agreement on Nuclear Cooperation with her Chinese counterpart Minister, Administrator of China National Energy Agency, Wu Xinxiong.
South Africa hosted the first workshop in October with Russia. - SAnews.gov.za
