The South African government on Wednesday moved to dispel concerns over the environmental impact of Eskom's coal-fired Medupi power station.

The move comes the day before the World Bank board is set to consider Eskom's US$3.75 billion loan, most of which would be used to fund Medupi.

"South Africa is pursuing an energy strategy compatible with both our commitments in the Copenhagen Accord to reduce emissions by 34% below the 'business as usual' level by 2020, and 42% by 2025," government said in its response to questions on the Eskom loan application to the World Bank.

It said this strategy included meeting urgent generation expansion while committing to an aggressive programme to enhance energy efficiency measures and introducing renewable energy as well as demand-side management.

The government pointed out that the generation technologies chosen by Eskom were fully embedded in and informed by the Long Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS) adopted by the Government in 2008.

"The intention is to ensure that carbon emissions peak during 2020-2025, reaching a plateau for a decade, and then begin declining thereafter," the government confirmed.

"Therefore the issue of carbon mitigation from increased generation needs to be viewed in a broader context, as the mitigations derive from several sources and sectors, and also over an extended time frame," the government said.

"The Medupi power plant for example, is the first in Africa to use the cleaner coal 'supercritical' technology, the same technology used in developed countries for new coal power generation," the government added.