Karpowership to help ease Ukraine’s energy crisis via floating power stations

Turkey’s floating power plant company Karpower International (Karpowership) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with state-owned trader JSC Energy Company of Ukraine (ECU) to enhance electricity supply cooperation and accelerate the use of floating power stations to alleviate the nation’s energy crisis.

The parties agreed to work alongside national and international organisations to develop and finance the implementation of 500 MW, which is enough to power over 1 million households.

Karpowership and ECU are considering floating power stations, known as Powerships, to be moored offshore Moldova and Romania, with electricity connecting to Ukraine’s grid via transmission lines. As a result, the companies will engage Moldovan and Romanian authorities to assess the viability of these two options.

To achieve their goal, both parties have agreed to hold regular meetings to jointly develop and implement the project and work together to secure the necessary permissions and approvals to collaborate with third parties, including international organisations.

“Karpowership is delighted to work with ECU to ease Ukraine’s power crisis,” said Zeynep Harezi, Karpowership’s Chief Commercial Officer. “Powerships are a fast, reliable, and flexible solution to the nation’s electricity shortages, and we are ready to support Ukraine in getting the energy it needs as soon as possible.”

ECU Chief Executive Officer Vitaly Butenko explained: “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.

“Karpowership technology allows for rapid deployment of new power generation capacity which will be transferred to the Ukrainian grid. We believe this can create a regional paradigm shift for solving Ukraine’s energy crisis while the nation’s infrastructure is being subjected to Russian attacks.”

Karpowership, which already operates across Africa, in New Caledonia and Brazil, said it has been in talks with several European countries to supply as much as 2 GW of electricity via Powerships to help ease the region’s energy crisis.

Powerships are ship or barge-mounted, fully integrated floating power plants which connect directly to a country’s electricity grid, leveraging existing infrastructure, and can do so in less than 30 days, the company claims.

Karpowership operates a fleet of 36 such vessels, which are multi-fuel enabled, operating on either liquefied natural gas (LNG), low sulphur fuel oil or biodiesel.