Floating Power Plants Hold the Potential to Provide Reliable Energy

Power generating stations built onto ships and barges are emerging as a dependable electricity source for islands, harbor towns and crowded cities that have little room to spare. Backers say the vessels sidestep the complaints about space and scenery that dog large solar and wind farms, because they feed a shore-side grid directly from the water.

The floating power plant concept is considerably older than the current climate push, with roots reaching back to 1931. That year the cargo ship SS Jacona was refitted to give storm-battered communities in the northeastern United States a stopgap supply. Demand grew after the Second World War, and by the 1990s Westinghouse and Wärtsilä were building barges for developing countries.

Today the vessels come in two broad designs that suit different jobs. Power ships carry their own engines and are often reworked bulk carriers that burn gas or heavy oil. Turkey’s MV Doğan Bey, refitted in 2010 and sent straight to Basra, was the first modern case.

Power barges, on the other hand, lack propulsion and get towed to a site, where they connect to local wiring. Some serve cities for years, as in Pevek in Russia and Luanda in Angola, while others fill short-term needs at mines or after disasters. Solar barges, fitted with panels and batteries, suit river and remote coastal settlements, where they can run equipment for shellfish beds in Maine.

Their output is modest, though, topping out around 50MW, and they falter in polar latitudes that lose sunlight for months at a stretch. Oil-burning ships face a different problem, since a world racing to cut emissions is unlikely to keep them.

That gap is pushing interest toward nuclear-powered vessels, and Russia has the only example in service. The Akademik Lomonosov reached Pevek in 2019 with a pair of modified reactors, enough for over 200,000 residents. Because each reactor can be serviced on its own, supply stays steady, and the plant spares Arctic communities the diesel soot that harms their health.

Officials in Norway, Japan, India and along the Mediterranean are studying the technology, while South Korea joins Russia in developing units for domestic and overseas buyers. Reactors carry hazards of their own, among them the handling of used fuel and a slim chance of meltdown, and the industry is still in its infancy.

Regulation is lagging well behind the hardware, and the gaps are significant. Nobody has settled whether such a vessel counts as a ship or a generating station, which maritime rules apply, or who pays if something goes wrong at sea. The American Bureau of Shipping has drafted the earliest thorough standards, a promising step, yet governments will need to build their own rules as more countries try the technology.

The options for cleaner energy are increasing as enterprises like Frontieras North America Inc. develop novel ways to use existing fuel sources like coal.

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