Cape Town - The National Department of Transport announced that it has approved Karpowership South Africa’s application to access the three ports of Ngqura, Durban and Saldanha Bay for 20 years.
In a bid to alleviate the country’s worsening energy crisis, Karpowership has increasingly been hailed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa and Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe as a viable option to assist the country by providing emergency power from its gas-to-power ships.
This comes after Karpowership SA faced extensive criticism and setbacks to all three of its projects to supply 1 220MW of emergency electricity to the country since it was named a preferred bidder in the the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme – a particular challenge was that the company had their environmental authorisation denied.
Supplying 1 220MW of emergency electricity would be able to bring down one stage of load shedding for the country, although many criticised that this is not worth the huge expense that securing these gas-to-power ships would mean for the 20-year-duration of its contracts.
Ramokgopa previously said one of the interventions being considered for the energy crisis is the emergency procurement of power and that power ships were part of the solutions in the mix. However, he said that emergency power contracts should not be longer than five years.
In delivering the closing address at the Enlit Africa Energy Conference on Thursday, Ramokgopa again emphasised that power ships will form part of the country's emergency energy procurement.
The Department of Transport said that Karpowership’s application was approved by the Minister on February 26, before which the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) was consulted and gave its support for the approval.
“The following conditions were attached in the approval: TNPA reserves the right to include all the necessary commercial and safety requirements or agreements that are considered necessary during the period of this directive; the directive is also subject to all other government approvals such as environmental approvals from competent government departments and/or authorities,” the department said.
Earlier, this month Karpowership SA said that South Africa remained central to its operations, and it was committed to contributing towards an energy solution that enabled inclusive economic growth.
In April, Mantashe said in an interview with Talk Radio 702’s Clement Manyathela that he believed load shedding could be over by the end of the year if emergency power procurement through Karpowership, along with other measures, was “taken seriously”.