Analysis: Ramokgopa plays the gas procurement trump card from his energy plan deck

A year ago, Daily Maverick declared wind as the early winner in Electricity Minister Ramokgopa’s Integrated Resource Plan 2025. Now, a new leader has emerged – straight out of Gwede Mantashe’s liquefied gas dreams.

What a difference a year makes. At Windaba 2025, Minister Ramokgopa spoke of electrons flowing from endless windmills . Fast-forward to the same event a year later, and that electricity will now come from gas molecules and battery chemicals first, and solar-powered sprites (wind is also solar-powered, btw) at a later date.

“We are announcing a determination of 4,600 megawatts of battery energy storage system, and we further are announcing 5,000 megawatts of gas to power,” Ramokgopa explained.

“This represents a combined allocation of 9,600 megawatts. It will make no provision for new wind or solar capacity. The purpose is to address the immediate need for storage flexibility in agile dispatchable supply whilst reducing the risk that further variable generation will increase electricity curtailment.”

He had an answer to the logical next question already loaded in his cranium. “A generating plant without dependable fuel cannot provide dependable electricity … the proposed gas allocation must therefore be implemented through a coordinated fuel infrastructure and generation programme,” he said, filling in some of the blanks about the looming gas cliff and South Africa’s lack of domestic production.

“What we'll be announcing is that we’ll be co-locating load. So instead of relying on transmission infrastructure, we are able to match the load to the power packs,” which settles the dispute about not building out the grid enough, while nullifying the benefits of chasing gas pipe dreams.

Oddly, Ramokgopa is deviating from the alignment between his Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2025 and Gwede Mantashe’s 2024 Gas Master Plan . Both frameworks specified 6,000MW of gas-fired power as part of the mix by around 2030 – with the IRP 2025 splitting the allocation evenly between Eskom and independent power producers.

The new procurement determination accelerates the plans for large-scale gas-to-power (G2P) projects to serve as an anchor load for midstream liquefied natural gas (LNG) import infrastructure.

It then advances this idea to include market-led site selection that matches G2P and storage locations directly with transmission capacity and industrial demand nodes.

Wait, but what about the gas cliff? Glad you asked. For the non-gas nerds: Sasol’s natural gas supply from the Pande and Temane fields in Mozambique, alongside methane-rich gas supplies in KZN and Mpumalanga, will decline sharply or cease for third parties by 2026-2028. The 5,000MW G2P determination was launched in October 2026, with major new G2P plants and LNG terminals expected to reach commercial operation in 2029–2030. Bridging this shortfall will require interim emergency LNG arrangements via Mozambique/Matola.

The alignment goes deeper still.