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South Africa
Operating
2
Number of Reactors
(as of August 2026)
41.8
Mean Age of Reactor Fleet
(as of August 2026)
4.6%
Increase
Nuclear Share in Electricity Production
(2025)
WNISR
in the Media –
7 October 2026
Energize (South Africa)
Nuclear generation hits record high, but solar moves ahead
Global nuclear power generation reached an all-time high in 2025. In the same year, solar generated more electricity than nuclear for the first time. by Justin Render • 29 September 2026 Those two milestones capture much of the tension in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2026 (
WNISR2026
). Nuclear remains a significant source of low-carbon electricity and reactor construction is at its highest level in decades. But new nuclear development is increasingly concentrated in China and (…)
WNISR
in the Media –
30 March 2025
Daily Maverick (South Africa)
(Opinion) Nuclear power will never be a viable solution to Africa’s energy needs
Africa is blessed with enormous potential from solar, wind, geothermal and hydro. Renewables can meet 75% of Africa’s electricity needs by 2040 and 100% by 2050. by Neil Overy • 25 March 2025 On 23 January 2025, Daily Maverick carried an opinion piece by Jakkie Cilliers from the Institute for Security Studies (
ISS
) which concluded that nuclear power was “a viable future option for many African countries”. This conclusion was based on many false assumptions about nuclear power, and – (…)
The Annual Reports –
4 September 2018
Nuclear Power: Strategic Asset, Liability or Increasingly Irrelevant?
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2018 Released
Paris, London, 4 September 2018. Nuclear power plants added a total of 7-gigawatt (
GW
) capacity to the world’s electricity grids in 2017 and the first half of 2018, a tiny fraction of the total from all sources, which is estimated at some 257
GW
(net) in 2017, including 157
GW
of renewable capacity (the largest increase ever). Over that 18-month period, six reactors started up in China, two in Russia and one in Pakistan. For the third year in a row, excluding China, global nuclear power generation has declined, finds the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2018 (
WNISR2018
).