Avoiding credit downgrade is vital to financing any nuclear project
SA could probably afford to build large-scale nuclear power, but it depended on a number of different factors, speakers at an Africa Energy Indaba panel on financing the nuclear programme said on Tuesday. But they agreed that attracting financing at a reasonable interest cost depended on the country’s avoiding a credit downgrade and reducing its political and economic risks. Delegates were discussing the government’s determination to build 9,600MW of new nuclear power, despite criticisms and legal challenges on the grounds of its affordability, transparency and whether there was a real need for it. Mike Peo, head of infrastructure, energy and telecommunications finance at Nedbank, said pricing a loan for a small rooftop solar installation or a five-year energy project required very different assumptions from financing a nuclear plant that took 10 years to build and had a 70 year operating life. The longer the period for which demands and costs had to be projected, the more likely it...
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