Group Chief Executive Officer of the South African Nuclear Energy, Loyiso Tyabashe, says while decentralisation of energy production is key, special focus must be paid to affordability. Tyabashe was speaking on the sidelines of the Africa CEO Forum, taking place at the Kigali Conference Centre in Rwanda.

Although he is a proponent of decentralisation, he believes that economics must also play a role in the process.

“We need to push for that decentralization so that small companies can come into the fore and be part of the grid that distributes electricity to the different parts of the countries, but it is important that economics play a central role in that we want affordable energy. We can’t afford to have a nuclear plant that has got costs that are not affordable to the public,” he says.

Tyabashe, who boasts over 25 years of technical and leadership experience in the nuclear industry, says a lot still needs to be done in Africa regarding the rollout of the nuclear technology.

“I am looking forward to seeing many other countries hosting different nuclear plants because as you would know, we have about more than 400 nuclear reactors producing power in operation around the world. Africa only has two. It will grow to about six when Egypt goes operational and there is a fundamental need for us to grow this technology going forward.”

The head of Necsa has praised the attitude shown by various countries and believes that the continent is heading in the right direction.

“There is a lot of interest which is why different countries are talking about this and they are doing their evaluation of their countries’ readiness in line with the international atomic agencies’ approach in terms of how ready you can get ready to deploy nuclear plant,” he adds.

Meawwhile, South African municipalities are set to implement an average electricity tariff hike of 9.01% from July. The Nersa-approved increase comes on the back of the 8.76% increase in April, which was applied to direct Eskom customers.

The conference will continue on Friday.

Group Chief Executive Officer of the South African Nuclear Energy, Loyiso Tyabashe, says while decentralization of energy production is key, special focus must be paid to affordability. #SABCNews #AfricaCEOForum pic.twitter.com/j809FZCLmO

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