Karpowership project gets green light, a costly gamble?

It seems as though, whether South Africa at large – and our sensitive coastal environment – likes it or not, the Karpowership project to add extra power to the national electricity grid is going ahead.

This follows yesterday’s announcement by government green-lighting the Richards Bay part of the process, following an environmental impact assessment that has worried some conservationists.

This opens the door for the full 20-year, R200-billion powership programme.

It goes without saying that this is an enormous expense for a country that is not even keeping its head above water financially.

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The government’s argument that the extra power will help stimulate growth is nullified by this massive outlay.

Not only that, the reality is that we don’t need these ships. Even the best-case scenario will see all of the Turkish company’s projects adding just 1.2GW to our grid. That’s the same as the increase in installed solar power over the past year alone.

While private and commercial solar installations do not solve the problem of base-load demand for electricity, they do significantly reduce the drain on Eskom – and have already helped reduce load shedding.

The ANC is hell-bent on the powership idea, despite its obvious flaws. We wonder why that is…

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