Energy: Updated IRP ready for publication?

Government’s updated integrated resource plan was approved last week by Cabinet and is waiting to be gazetted, according to Energy Minister David Mahlobo (Engineering News) – yet, strangely, it did not feature in a media statement on the ‘marathon’ meeting at which this significant decision was made, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch.  Nevertheless, the Minister’s somewhat cryptic remarks on the plan’s contents at a recent energy indaba appear to have reinforced perceptions fuelled by a draft version released over a year ago for comment: that ‘the mix of generation technologies’ envisaged in the updated plan is unlikely to have been determined according to ‘international best-practice planning methodology, based on rational modelling using up-to-date assumptions and technology costs’ (Fin24).

Participants in the indaba were especially irked by Mahlobo’s insistence that there will be ‘no further … consultation’ on the various scenarios modelled, related cost/benefit analyses or electricity price trajectories. According to the Minister, the updated plan uses the same generation mix as its predecessor – but ‘scaled back proportionally by about 20%’, in line with forecasts of reduced demand. Consequently, nuclear build is still very much on the agenda, but ‘on a smaller scale’ (Fin24). The Minister was reportedly unwilling to provide ‘a possible new figure’.