South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. plans to compete with private power developers by gradually transitioning from coal to cleaner technologies as overall capacity expands in the coming decade.
The utility, which has managed to avoid blackouts for over three months, aims to expand its capacity.
According to Dan Mashigo, Eskom’s general manager for primary energy, who spoke at a Johannesburg conference on Tuesday, the company plans to add generation from a mix of solar, wind, hydro, battery, gas, and nuclear sources.
The overall system capacity is expected to increase to 54 gigawatts by 2035, up from 48 gigawatts next year.
Recently, the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in Cape Town, Western Cape province, marked 40 years of safe nuclear operation of its Unit 1 reactor.
Eskom said in a statement that throughout this period, Koeberg has reliably generated clean and affordable electricity, playing a crucial role in the country’s economic development.
Most of South Africa’s power stations are located on the Highveld coal fields in Mpumalanga province, over 1,000 kilometres from Cape Town.
In contrast, the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station serves as a crucial anchor for the country’s electricity transmission network in the Western Cape.
Its strategic location significantly reduces transmission losses when supplying electricity to Cape Town and its surrounding areas.
Koeberg remains the only operational nuclear power station in Africa and features the largest turbine generators in the Southern Hemisphere.