The cabinet approved the country's 20-year energy master plan, meant to unlock investment in the power sector and help build reserve capacity to avoid a repeat of a 2008 power crisis which shut industry down for days in the world's top producer of platinum and a major supplier of gold.
Africa's biggest economy currently relies on coal for nearly all of its electricity supply, most of which is generated by state-owned power utility Eskom .
But the new plan foresees 42 percent of all new plants coming on stream between now and 2030 to be based on green power, 23 percent on nuclear and only 15 percent on coal.
"Cabinet considered, deliberated and approved the policy adjusted integrated resource plan 2010... as the basis for the South African power generation programme for the next 20 years," Collins Chabane, minister in the presidency in charge of monitoring and evaluation, told reporters.
The plan still has to be approved by parliament.
