South Africa is hoping to lure back engineers working abroad as part of a recruitment drive to ramp up nuclear power capacity and ultimately supply about a tenth of the nation’s electricity, the country’s most ambitious energy project in decades.

The plan aims to attract skilled migrants and South African expatriates, especially those working in the United Arab Emirates, which hired large numbers of local engineers during the build-out of its Barakah Nuclear Plant over the last decade.

It forms part of a $120 billion-plus energy roadmap aimed at stabilizing South Africa’s electricity grid and transitioning away from the nation’s longstanding reliance on coal. The nuclear component, targeting 5,200 MW of new generation capacity by 2039 — is the most contested pillar of a strategy that includes a major expansion in solar, wind and gas to power infrastructure...

...“The 168 people we currently have are not enough to be able to undertake the work related to the expanded program,” she said. This recruitment drive is designed to provide immediate technical support while local “talent pipelines” are rebuilt, Kgomo added, creating a knowledge transfer bridge between South African teams and international specialists.

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The collapse of a major nuclear energy project in South Africa in 2010 saw thousands of specialists leave the country. Many went to the UAE, while others joined US-based startups like X-energy. The country had poured more than 9 billion rand ($550 million) into the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, which briefly made South Africa one of the global centers for advanced nuclear engineering before the project was shelved due to delays and rising costs....