South Africa - World Nuclear Performance Report

South Africa has a single nuclear power plant at Koeberg, 30 km north of Cape Town. The plant’s two reactors, connected to the grid in 1984 and 1985, have a combined capacity of 1854 MWe.

To allow for the long-term operation of Koeberg the plant’s steam generators have to be replaced. The replacement work at unit 1 had originally been scheduled to take place in the first half of 2021, with similar work at Koeberg 2 the following year. However, the schedule was put back due to concerns about the tight supply of electricity in South Africa. Koeberg 1's maintenance outage began on 10 December 2022 and to allow for the replacement of steam generators had been expected to last about six months. In the event the unit returned to service in November 2023, after nearly a year offline.

Unit 2 was taken offline in December 2023. In February 2024 Eskom said it expected the unit to return to service in September 2024. South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) confirmed in December 2023 that it is proceeding with the procurement of 2500 MWe of new nuclear capacity.

Nuclear electricity generation by age of reactor