With global demand for electricity predicted to grow at three percent per year, governments are looking to innovative floating power stations to ensure the steady supply of electricity essential for their economies.
For more than a decade, South Africa has experienced widespread national electricity shortages—at the end of 2022 only half of the country’s power generation was operational. To mitigate the strain on the national grid, the government has had to implement rolling blackouts, known locally as ‘load shedding’. This regularly sees South Africans without electricity for between 8 to 10 hours a day. According to Central Bank estimates, the G20 nation’s electricity crisis is costing the economy as much as $51 million per day: without the outages, South Africa’s GDP growth could have doubled this year.
Karpowership is one company that South Africa can turn to for a solution. It owns and operates the world's largest fleet of floating power plants, vessels known as Powerships. These can be rapidly deployed to generate electricity, plugging directly into a country's power grid. Offering multi-fuel capabilities, Powerships can be operational within 30 days of signing a contract, providing a fast, flexible, and reliable solution to energy shortages. Currently operating in 14 countries, Karpowership’s 36 vessels can deliver a total installed capacity in excess of 6,000 MW.
Each Powership is entirely self-contained, equipped with essential onboard infrastructure such as fuel storage, power generation facilities, and crew accommodation. Once moored, they are connected to a country's grid via a substation with flexible capacity options ranging from 30 MW to 470 MW of electricity. The vessels generate electricity using conventional combined cycle internal combustion engines with heat recovery, and their multi-fuel capabilities enable the use of natural gas or low sulphur liquid fuels, including biodiesel. If natural gas is the preferred fuel, it can be piped directly from onshore facilities or transferred using Karpowership's specialist Floating Storage Regasification Units (FSRUs). These store Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and have the onboard capabilities to regasify it when needed. Upon decommissioning, the Powerships can be easily redeployed, leaving no environmental footprint.
For South Africa, where the power grid is under significant strain, crippling communities and the economy alike, this solution could be ideal. Karpowership is hoping to partner with the South African Government to eliminate the country’s 8,000 MW shortfall by providing a short to medium term bridging solution while the government works in parallel to supply the balance through a mix of renewable sources. Karpowership has been awarded a contract to generate 1.2 GW as part of the government’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), having offered the lowest bidding price. The Powerships will be moored alongside FSRUs, providing South Africa with access to the international LNG market and significantly diversifying its energy supply sources.
The solution ticks two more crucial boxes. ESKOM, South Africa’s State Utility, estimates the cost of using diesel plants to supplement supply is approximately six Rand/kWh. Karpowership's offer is less than half of that, making it both a cheaper and more sustainable solution. Natural gas is now seen as the cleanest bridging fuel to renewable power, increasingly replacing coal and other fossil fuels. In this way, Karpowership is significantly improving South Africa’s environmental baseline, providing cleaner and more sustainable power while the country transitions into renewable energy generation. In a world where new thermal power plant construction and eventual decommissioning has far-reaching environmental and social impacts, mobilising a floating power plant is as easy as sailing a ship into a port. Once the job is done, that same ship can simply leave, without the permanent effects and considerable environmental footprint of decommissioning a land-based power plant.
It’s a solution that is being used around the world, with Karpowership’s alignment with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals acknowledged and highlighted in several documentaries. The company already has a strong presence in Africa with eight operational projects in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, The Gambia, Mozambique, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau. It is also active in Latin America, Asia, and Oceania, the Dominican Republic, and New Caledonia, with leading emerging markets like Indonesia and Brazil all benefitting from these floating power plants. Karpowership’s project in Brazil consists of four Powerships totalling 560 MW alongside an FSRU for the supply of regasified LNG.
The speed and ease of their deployment, the flexibility of their fuel supply, and the reliability of their electricity generation capacity make Powerships an excellent solution to South Africa's energy needs. Karpowership’s readiness to deliver cost-effective and reliable power offers a lifeline to nations facing critical energy shortages and holds the promise of keeping South Africa's lights on and the wheels of industry turning.
