Coastal encounters with electrical hybridity: Karpowership in Africa’s energy transition

Abstract Karpowership’s large floating vessels provide electricity to millions of people in Africa’s coastal urban centers. Both the technology choice and the business practices of the family-run company are controversial. Not only do the ships use highly polluting heavy fuels, but there are also persuasive allegations of corruption and predatory practices. Extending this critique, we read powerships through the lens of both energy transitions and electrical hybridity, focusing attention on the justifying logics and negotiating efforts of African energy actors. We assemble an archive of the use of these ships in Africa and deep dive into three cases: Sierra Leone; The Gambia; and South Africa to make three interlinked arguments. First, powership deployment in Africa reflects electrical hybridization, a mode of development whereby modular, decentralized technologies operate in service of the established network and utility. Short-term augmentation is taking place alongside piecemeal efforts to enhance energy security and improve the energy mix. Second, against the backdrop of deep uncertainties and recursive injustices, this hybridization is seen by African state actors to have high cost, but low risk, mitigating concerns over infrastructural lock-in or elite grid defecting. Finally, and despite claims that African states are at the mercy of this private company, we map how these terms of engagement are challenged through a wide range of tactics, specific to their respective context. In conclusion, we argue that Karpowership is enrolled in a hybrid, speculative, and additive project, whereby serving the urban network remains central to the ability of the state to deliver on both diverse imperatives.