• Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has voice his concerns about the Karpowership deal South Africa is engaged in.
• The Premier urged government to consider other energy providers before locking itself into a costly 20 year contract with a single firm.
• The Karpowership deal is expected to cost up to R500 billion at the top end of estimates while removing just one stage of loadshedding.

Loadshedding continues to plague South Africans with power cuts currently cycling between Stage 1 and Stage 3 daily.

There is no end in sight to the energy crisis and while Eskom works to resolve the emergency it created, government is looking beyond the utility to light the nation. One of those solutions is the controversial use of Karpowership’s floating power stations.

In May the Turkish firm was given permission to moor its ships at local harbours. These floating power stations use natural gas to generate electricity. This power generation comes at a massive cost with conservative estimates putting the cost of a 20-year deal at R200 billion and upper estimates sitting at R500 billion. All of this is for a mere 1 200MW of energy – the equivalent of roughly one stage of loadshedding.

As you can imagine, the deal has seen a large amount of pushback and the latest to voice their disagreement is the Western Cape Cabinet.

“I do not believe investing vast resources into one company is appropriate and allowing Karpowership SA (Pty) to operate in South Africa for such a long time should not be allowed,” Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde said in a statement.

The Premier isn’t against the idea of power ships entirely but says that government should explore other options including renewable energy as well as other power stations on ships.

“If we are to include powerships in our efforts to resolve the energy crisis, we must also consider other companies, and the time period over which they would be utilised must be strictly limited to 5 years, subjected to clear guidelines. This measure should also not negate our investment into ‘green energy’,” wrote Winde.

Further placing emphasis on renewable energy, Winde appealed to South Africa’s leaders to consider the impact the decisions we make now will have on future generations.

“Not only is RE becoming increasingly cost-effective it will also assist greatly in our transition away from fossil fuels. We need to strike a balance; we have an obligation to meet the country’s climate change commitments while at the same time growing our economy which requires a stable, resilient, low-carbon energy mix,” adds the Premier.

The Western Cape Premier is not the only one voicing his concern regarding Karpowership. Legal challenges have been levelled against the deal by the likes of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) and the Centre for Environmental Rights submitted objections to the licensing of these ships in 2021.

Despite these objections, the Karpowership deal appears to be moving forward although perhaps not for the 20-year span as outlined previously. Chief commercial officer for Karpowership, Zeynep Harezi said the deal could be shortened to five years and that its ships are ready to be deployed.