An extensive economic review of South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan 2025 (IRP 2025), approved by Cabinet in October 2025 has been conducted by the authors, and the report concludes that the South African IRP 2025’s emphasis on variable wind and solar electricity will raise the cost of electricity, undermine economic growth, and fail to deliver on South Africa’s national priorities of poverty alleviation, inequality reduction, and improved living standards. The findings and recommendations are applicable to any country, but especially to industrialized and developing economies.

Electricity is a service, not merely a product. It must be available on demand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, at the correct frequency, voltage, phase, and current. This is the physical reality governed by the laws of thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Supply and demand must balance instantaneously, or the grid collapses.

In South African conditions, solar PV achieves annual natural capacity factors of ~26%, while wind reaches ~35% in favorable locations. These figures reflect the inherent variability of natural resources. Solar produces nothing at night and minimal during cloudy days, and wind can drop to near-zero during prolonged calm periods. Variable sources cannot guarantee dispatchable electricity without 100% backup from baseload generation in the form of coal, gas, or nuclear generated electricity.  The cost of such backup increases with unpredictable wind and solar power in the system.

Electricity storage systems in the form of batteries may be added, but they merely shift the problem by 1 to 2 hours. Thay also add to the total system cost, but do not guarantee on demand electricity 24/7/365. It needs to be remembered that batteries need to be charged before they are available for use, and that they “lose” energy for providing storage. This means that vast overbuild of wind and solar is required to supply demand as well as charge the storage systems at the same time.

All electricity back up........

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