South Africa’s long-running load-shedding crisis has prompted a dramatic response: the government’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2025, unveiled by Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, lays out an R2.2-trillion investment programme to overhaul generation, storage and the grid with the explicit objective of ending load-shedding for good.
Key headline numbers are sweeping: the IRP targets the addition of roughly 105,000 MW (105 GW) of new generation capacity by 2039 — an expansion ministers described as “building Eskom two-and-a-half times over.” Cabinet approved the plan in mid-October 2025, with the minister briefing the media shortly thereafter.
What the Plan Changes
The IRP rebalances the power mix: coal’s share falls sharply while renewable sources and other technologies grow. The published modelling reduces coal’s share from roughly 58% today to about 27% by 2039, with renewables (wind and solar) and firming options — gas, nuclear and storage — making up the rest of the mix. The plan also includes provisions to increase the gas load factor to 50% for new gas-to-power projects, and allocates substantial battery storage to manage intermittency.
The IRP is explicit about financing: it frames the R2.2 trillion as largely off-balance-sheet, relying on private investors while government acts as an electricity offtaker — a structure that reduces immediate fiscal strain but creates contingent liabilities and execution risks, especially around large-scale nuclear procurement.
Renewables, Storage and Other Technologies
Targets to 2030 are front-loaded: about 11,000 MW of new solar PV, roughly 7,300 MW of wind, distributed rooftop systems, and around 3,100 MW of battery storage are part of the near-term rollout. The plan also allocates significant new capacity to gas-to-power (6,000 MW by 2030 and more thereafter) and modest nuclear expansion in the 5,000–10,000 MW range depending on procurement choices. These figures appear consistently in government and independent reporting of the IRP.
The IRP also signals interest in biomass, hydrogen (subject to cost reductions), and a clean-coal demonstration. Batteries and dispatchable generation are treated as essential to address renewables’ variability and to meet system-security requirements.
Grid Upgrades and the Transmission Development Plan
The plan recognises grid build-out as the programme’s backbone. New transmission corridors and upgrades to evacuation capacity — concentrated in high-resource zones such as parts of the Northern and Eastern Cape — are required to move generation from wind-and-sun rich regions into demand centres. The Transmission Development Plan (TDP) remains a potential bottleneck; matching generation procurement to grid readiness is an explicit design objective.
Regional and Local Impacts
Provinces with strong renewable resources — notably areas with large wind and solar potential — are positioned to see the largest employment and investment effects during construction and operations. The IRP and associated procurement windows are expected to catalyse manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs, plus local community benefits where community-trust or localisation provisions are applied. Independent reporting and local studies cited by government outline potential job and investment uplift in these regions.
International Partnerships and Investment
The IRP anticipates significant international collaboration — from technology suppliers to financiers — drawing on established global infrastructure and clean-energy financing channels. Instead of naming specific nations or programmes, the plan positions South Africa to work with a range of international partners to accelerate manufacturing, lower equipment costs and scale deployment quickly. These partnerships are central to achieving the capital-intensive targets set out in the IRP.
Winners — and Real Risks
Likely beneficiaries include renewable developers, construction and engineering firms, battery and storage providers, and sectors benefiting from improved power reliability. Jobs and local industrial activity could expand where projects are sited and local content rules apply.
But the plan carries major execution risks: achieving gas-to-power targets depends on gas-import and pipeline infrastructure that is currently limited; procurement and contracting must be stable and transparent to attract private capital; grid-build timing must align with generation delivery; and the social and affordability implications of new technologies (including nuclear and gas) require careful management. Failure in any of these areas could prolong energy insecurity rather than solve it. Government briefings and independent analyses highlight these vulnerability points.
A High-Stakes Bet on South Africa’s Future
IRP 2025 represents a daring, high-stakes gamble to end load-shedding and propel South Africa into a green energy era. With R2.2 trillion at stake, the plan’s success could unlock prosperity — but failure could mean prolonged instability. The difference will come down to transparent execution, steady policy, and investor confidence.