The South African government aims to Gazette an update to the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for electricity before the end of the 2024 calendar year and finalise South Africa’s inaugural Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) by the second quarter of the 2025/26 fiscal year.

The timelines were provided during a meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy on August 23, which was briefed by Electricity and Energy Deputy Minister Samantha Graham-Marê, as well as officials from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE).

The DMRE remains in place ahead of the formal establishment of the Department of Electricity and Energy and the Department of Mineral Resources and Petroleum.

DMRE director-general Jacob Mbele confirmed that Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa would host a workshop with those stakeholders that had made “substantive comments” on the draft IRP2023.

The drafting process would not be started over, however, as had been requested by some stakeholders.

The draft IRP2023 was heavily criticised for its demand and technology cost assumptions, as well as for failing to adequately address the issue of loadshedding, while the public consultation process, which involved two virtual workshops, was slammed for being entirely inadequate.

The draft IRP2023 was Gazetted for public comment on January 4 this year with an initial closing date of February 23 for such comments, and was later extended to March 23.

A total of 4 338 comments were received, of which 136 were regarded by the department to be substantive in nature.

In a presentation to the portfolio committee, the DMRE said the comments had been grouped and catalogued into themes and would be taken into account, along with the outcome of the workshop, as part of the remodelling work that would be undertaken for the final plan, dubbed IRP2024.

The document would then be canvased at the National Economic Development and Labour Council, as well as with directors-general and Ministerial clusters before being presented to Cabinet for its final approval.

The presentation document indicates that the IRP2024 is scheduled to serve before Cabinet in October and be published in November.

Mbele expressed confidence that the IRP timelines would be met, but cautioned that the timelines outlined for the completion of the IEP may prove more difficult to meet.

He said that because South Africa had not yet succeeded in Gazetting an IEP it could take longer than indicated to finalise the document.

The DMRE, he said, was also sensitive to criticism over the lack of consultation regarding the draft IRP2023 and would, thus, seek to ensure higher levels of public engagement when drafting the IEP.

By law, the IEP is meant to be published yearly but Mbele noted that the section in the National Energy Act requiring such updates commenced only on April 1, 2024, following the signing of a proclamation on March 30, 2023.

The intention was to finalise and overarching plan – incorporating plans for electricity, liquid fuels and gas – showing how the objectives security of supply, affordability, access, and environmental responsibility and social equity would be dealt with.

Work was under way on the first phase of drafting, which would culminate in the  input assumptions to be used in the IEP.

The next three phases involved technical modelling, the publication of a draft IEP and stakeholder consultation, which would be followed by the drafting of a final IEP for submission to Cabinet for approval.

Mbele cautioned that the longer the lag between finalising the assumptions and the final plan the more likely it would be that the plan’s assumptions would be out of date by the time it was Gazetted.

However, he said that once the initial IEP was in place regular updating should be easier to achieve.