President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed Jeff Radebe as Minister as part of his cabinet reshuffle on 26 January 2018.
In the 2016/2017 budget the department had a budget of R7,545 million and a staff complement of 622 civil servants.[2]
In August 2018, the Department of Energy released a draft of South Africa's updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the plan which seeks to meet the country's energy consumption demands, for public comment.[3] The current plan dropped proposals for expansion of the number of nuclear plants in the country, focusing instead on expanding the production of renewable energy and creating two new coal power plants.[4]