Turkey’s Karpowership has moved a step closer to supplying electricity to Ukraine via its floating power plants, known as powerships.
Karadeniz Holding’s subsidiary has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ukrainian state-run trader JSC Energy Company to develop and finance the implementation of 500 MW, enough to power over 1m households.
Karpowership, which owns and operates 36 powerships with an installed capacity of 6,000 MW, said it had been in talks with several European countries to supply up to 2,000 MW of electricity to help ease the region’s energy crisis.
The company’s units, currently in operation across Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, and Iraq, among others, have a range starting from 30 MW up to 470 MW and they are said to be ready to operate in less than 30 days.
One of the options being considered for Ukraine is for the powerships, which operate on either liquefied natural gas, low sulphur fuel oil or biodiesel, to be moored offshore Moldova and Romania, with electricity connecting to Ukraine’s grid via transmission lines.
“Ukraine’s energy system has suffered 12 massive Russian attacks, resulting in damage to its power generation infrastructure and electricity shortages. While the war continues, building new power units to recover lost or damaged generation capacity is not a feasible option and we need to look for innovative solutions to the current crisis,” said Vitaly Butenko, chief executive of ECU.
