Turkey’s Karpowership Joins the Fleet in Cuba

A new floating powership, Turkey’s Karadeniz Holding’s global brand, “Karpowership,” arrived in the Bay of Mariel this week. The floating power plant for electricity generation adds to their fleet of power barges already anchored in the port of Mariel. It will be moved to the Bay of Havana shortly.

The Karadeniz Erin Sultan powership will contribute 130 MW to the national electricity grid once it arrives in the Bay of Havana.

The news was first announced on Twitter by Lázaro Guerra Hernández, technical director of the Union Electrica de Cuba (UNE). The new Karpowership results from an amendment in the existing agreement between Karadeniz Holding and UNE.

The original UNE and Karadeniz agreement included three powerships to produce 110 MW for a term of 51 months. The first Karpowership barges to arrive, the Barış Bey and Esra Sultan, began operations in the Bay of Mariel in July 2019.

In November 2019, the Ela Sultan powership joined the fleet. That month, the companies agreed to increase the contract capacity to 184 MW.

In December 2020, Karpowership held fresh negotiations with Cuba to install additional thermal power barges to support the three already in operation.

Karpowership operates in 19 countries across the globe. Cuba is the company’s first location in the Western Hemisphere and Latin America. Karpowership currently supplies 10% of Cuba’s total electricity needs.