Karpowership to pursue SA projects despite setbacks

Karpowership, the Turkish company seeking to supply 1 220 megawatts of electricity to South Africa, said it doesn’t plan to abandon its work in the country even after setbacks to all three projects.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment rejected an application to moor a ship-mounted power plant capable of generating about 450 megawatts at the Coega harbour in the Eastern Cape province and Karpowership temporarily withdrew an application for a plant of the same size at Richards Bay on the east coast. The request for a 320-megawatt plant in Saldanha on the west coast was suspended pending an investigation into allegations made by an environmental nonprofit.

Karpowership said it will seek a solution to the Coega rejection, has responded to the allegations and will resubmit the Richards Bay application when an administrative error is rectified.

“For three years, Karpowership SA has been subjected to multiple, unfounded allegations about its proposed gas-to-power projects,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “It is South Africans who will suffer from these further delays in getting Karpowership SA’s proposed projects up and running.”

A shortage of generation capacity is causing rotational blackouts — known locally as load shedding — of as many as 12 hours a day in South Africa. The Turkish company won a tender in March 2021 to supply the electricity, but has since been mired in lawsuits and environmental challenges.