Karpowership Fails to Overturn Environmental Ruling

The Turkish company Karpowership, which is attempting to supply more than 1 200 megawatts of electricity to South Africa, announced that it had failed in its appeal to overturn an environmental decision that had been made against its plans. This is yet another setback for the nation's efforts to find a solution to its power crisis.

Gas-fired power plants placed on ships are supplied by Karpowership. In a statement released to Bloomberg, it claimed that it would be permitted to fill in "perceived gaps” in its application.

After receiving objections from environmentalists over Karpowership's impact on fisheries, local ecosystems, and possible greenhouse gas emissions, South Africa's environment minister, Barbara Creecy, last year rejected the company's original proposal.

In an effort to encourage private companies to provide the electricity that state company Eskom has failed to provide, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa proposed revisions to the nation's power legislation last month. The nation is on track to see its worst year of power outages to record.

In order to procure 2000 MW of electricity to alleviate power shortages that have afflicted South Africa since 2008, Karpowership last year won more than 60% of an emergency power tender. The projects, which total barely 150MW, have finished their financial arrangements and are more than a year away from commissioning, even though the businesses had initially planned to start their supply this month.

Nearly 1 million homes' worth of energy needs might be satisfied by Karpowership's proposed supply.