‘ANY ADDITIONAL CAPACITY HELPFUL’: ENERGY EXPERT ON KARPOWERSHIP DEAL

Sun 21 May 2023:

Ruse Moleshe, an energy expert, has stated that in light of the country’s electricity problem, any more energy that can be plugged into the grid is welcome, EWN reported.

This follows the government’s announcement this week that it has granted Turkish power ship company Karpowership access to the three ports of Ngqura, Richards Bay, and Saldanha Bay for a 20-year period.

Karpowership will produce gas-to-power at these three ports.

Moleshe highlighted that the country has energy supply constraints and demand that is outstripping supply.

“Any additional capacity would be helpful and from a cost point of view, the cost of unserved energy in the economy is relatively high, so the cost of bringing in the Karpowership will be mitigated because the fact that we don’t have electricity that is costing the economy will kind of balance out for lack of a better word.”

Karpowership is a Turkish firm that builds, operates and owns a fleet of floating powerships that are moored in Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ghana and elsewhere. They use gas as fuel to generate electricity, which can then be fed to the national grid via cables or transmission lines to substations on the shore.

Electricity problem

South Africa’s state power utility Eskom earlier on Thursday warned the country to brace itself for winter when almost daily power cuts were likely to increase due to higher demand.

Africa’s most industrialised economy has seen its GDP suffer as its population copes with supply cuts lasting over 10 hours a day in the country’s worst power crisis.

A lack of investment and aging coal-fired power plants that provide the bulk of South Africa’s electricity needs, but are prone to breakdowns, are the main cause of its chronic energy woes.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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