Following the earlier announcement that it was working on a design of a modular high temperature reactor, the country’s main power utility, Eskom, is to undertake an environmental impact assessment for a pilot project. It will also make the necessary preparations for a licence application which, if the EIA is favourable, it would submit next year.
Eskom, which operates the Koeberg station (with two 965 MWe PWRs supplied by Framatome), is considering construction of 100 MWe HTR production modules based on the pebble bed concept developed in Germany. However, neither Germany nor the US were able to successfully commercialise HTR technology. Nevertheless, interest remains in many countries, including China, which has an HTR under construction, and Japan. Work is also being done in the Netherlands.
