Cape Town - During a briefing hosted by eco-justice group The Green Connection the controversial Karpowership SA projects have come under fire yet again after surprising insights from an independent deep techno-economic analysis.
The Green Connection used the briefing to unpack its opposition of offshore oil and gas exploration with input given by various researchers, specialists, small-scale fishers and legal representatives working on Azinam, Searcher, and Karpower.
Independent energy expert Hilton Trollip shared insight into the issues with Karpowerships’ proposed gas-to-power ships for Coega, Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay, that he found after conducting and in-depth governance analysis.
“I did a deep techno-economic analysis of the Karpowerships. Every bit of that analysis showed that if South Africa signs the power purchase agreement with Karpowerships, we would get incredibly bad value for money. We would be paying lots more for something we could get in a different way,” Trollip said.
Trollip said Karpowership had no rational role in SA’s energy transition.
After having its initial environmental authorisation denied due to numerous issues with its environmental impact assessment applications, Karpowership SA was reapplying for environmental authorisation for its three projects in the country.
As part of Karpowership SA’s new environmental authorisation, the company has initiated an enhanced process of additional public consultations to ensure all stakeholders fully understood the benefits these projects would bring the country by adding 1220MW of power to the SA grid.
The company said draft environmental reports containing more than 30 independent specialist scientific assessments of each project site would be published ahead of the public participation process later in November.
Karpowership SA director Mehmet Katmer said: “Karpowership has a solution to South Africa’s energy crisis that’s flexible, will reduce load shedding and will bring huge economic benefits to the local community.”
Katmer said Karpowership SA’s detailed and comprehensive environmental processes would ensure that all perceived gaps in the initial EIA were addressed for implementation of the projects that would ultimately maximise economic benefits to the communities in the project locations.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za