7 minute read
Plug-and-play
Doğan Bey, a Shark Class Powership which was put to work in Sierra Leone.
Achieving energy security through plug-and-play solutions
Ali Hjaiej, business development and sales vice president at Karpowership, explores the company’s unique solution for providing prompt power to African shores.
While the world struggles with one of the most keenly felt energy crises in living memory, affecting all nations regardless of their development status, the importance of flexible power solutions that offer an alternative way to meet this challenge has perhaps never been more pertinent.
As Hjaiej commented, “With climate change and unstable bilateral relations between countries, the energy crisis is in front of all economies and can affect any country. In such times, a diversified energy portfolio is paramount for energy security. When it comes to Africa, many countries are facing issues in delivering stable power plants and getting electricity to its people. There are many reasons for this from lack of planification to infrastructure issues. Very importantly, the continent faces too much instability in terms of politics, government chains and decision chains and this can make it very difficult to bring projects which take several years to develop into the fold.”
“It is for this reason that fast, reliable, plug-and-play power solutions can make a big difference. The problem with power generation is like the chick and egg conundrum: you need demand to develop power, but you need power to create demand. If you install power before demand you may not be able to finance it and can lose money, whereas if you create demand and there is no power your industries will suffer and may not succeed. Plug-and-play solutions can help fill this gap and meet demand quickly when required. This is where we operate and with the solutions we have available today I truly believe there is no reason for countries to justify the lack of electricity, as we are open for business.” Arrive, connect, and deliver
First established in 1948, it was not until the early 2000’s that Karpowership conceived the idea that is now the staple of their global identity: the Powership. With the first floating power station delivered in 2009, the fleet has now grown to no less than 36 fully constructed and ready to operate vessels.
Barge- or ship-mounted, the fully integrated floating power plants are designed and built utilising the latest engine technology from established brands, namely Wartsila and MAN. Across the fleet, a wide range of installed capacities from 30-470MW are available and are ready for power generation within a short time. In addition, they are fuel flexible, and are capable of using natural gas, LNG, biodiesel or low sulphur HFO to ensure the lowest cost of delivered power with no capital outlay. In regards to Africa, the company has established a large footprint with operations in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Mozambique, Sudan and more.
“Traditionally ours has been business to government but, predominantly in the last two years, we have begun taking contracts with private entities as well. There are a number of competitive advantages that makes our solution stand out globally and on the continent. One is the speed of delivery as, after collecting all the country’s necessary record regulations, authorities, and licences we are ready to start generating power within a month in most cases. By example, for our operations in Senegal our Powership arrived in the country 28 days after the contract signature.
“Another is environment. Firstly, there is the fact we can utilise different kinds of fuels which is of course great for the customer as it depends what is available. But also,
the Powership arrives at sea, moors at sea, and if it needs to depart when the contract is up, it can do so easily enough. This nullifies the need for any construction or deconstruction work which saves both time and emissions.
“These factors build to perhaps the most important aspect which is flexibility. While it is good to plan ahead, to build power plants with the same capacities as ours can take years, not to mention the time taken for financing and other studies. The problems with this really came to a head during Covid-19 where lots of projects in Africa fell through with the added instability and the travel restrictions. This was, and is not, an issue for us. We are unique in that we can bring a whole package in just 30 days including engines, heat recovery and steam turbines, readily installed. Once the Powership arrives, all we need to do is connect to a power line – you do not even need a substation as this is included in the solution. Simply, we arrive, we connect and we deliver.”
In African waters
The effectiveness of the Powerships was recently demonstrated in Côte d'Ivoire when three years ago Karpowership spoke to government authorities about bringing a vessel to the country. At the time, Hjaiej explained, they were not interested as they had already made investments for the next ten years with a number of projects in the pipeline around coal, hydro and thermal, and were unfamiliar with the concept of floating assets.
Two years later and Karpowership returned to find that Covid-19 had unsettled many of these designs while energy demand had continued to expand. With the prospect of quick energy tantalising but some convincing still required, Karpowership took key decision makers to Senegal to show them the solutions at work there; a fruitful endeavour as they agreed to bring on 100MW.
“Even though we had a contact for 100MW, we brought them a 200MW solution, giving them the option to use more if required. Today, the average dispatch is indeed above 100MW and now they want to keep the larger vessel on site,” commented Hjaiej.
“One thing we kept firmly in mind with this project, as it is a key tenet of our company, is CSR. We prioritise local people as much as we can in terms of employment here – 49% of our employees in our Côte d'Ivoire operations are local. Of course this does not count the indirect jobs around subcontractors, waste management, water collection, oil production, etc.
“In regards to the project in Senegal, this was located in Dakar –an intensely concentrated city with a high energy demand but little available space. They tried putting power plants around the city and transfer the electricity in but this was scuppered by losses and grid availability issues. We entered and started the project at 120MW which, within two years, grew to 220MW and we are looking to add more in the future.”
Image Credit: Karpowership
Even if you are an independent country, reserves are never endless and demand is going to grow.”
Fatmagül Sultan, an Orca Class Powership on location in Côte d'Ivoire. Looking ahead
For its progression in West Africa, Hjaiej surmised that they have now established a firm foothold so it has become a question of development.
“Our target in the region is to bring higher capacity for a longer duration. We have a few that are only 5-10 years so the discussions we are focusing on now is how we can deliver more and stay longer because in the countries we are operating in they recognise that they need us.”
The company is also seeking to develop the second part of its business which centres on floating storage regasification units (FSRUs). These vessels are the fruit of KARMOL, a joint venture between Karpowership and Mitsui OSK Lines, and the first was delivered in 2021 before deployment in Senegal. When used in combination with Powerships, it brings LNG-toPower to countries with no domestic gas supply.
Hjaiej explained that such a solution is critical in helping diversifying the energy mix which has proven to be vital in the current environment.
“This has become most obvious in Europe where the cut-off of Russian gas has seen energy prices spike on the continent. Even if you are an independent country such as Côte d'Ivoire, reserves are never endless and demand is going to grow. You need options to meet this and the ability to buy gas from wherever, not just tapping into the closest pipeline is paramount. With a floating asset such as ours, you don’t need a pipeline from one main supplier, but the entire world becomes a potential supplier, then it is just a matter of negotiation around price.” ■
