The technical suitability of the Port of La Luz and Las Palmas to host the floating power plant of the Turkish corporation Karpowership faces a significant operational questioning. While Canarian Coalition and the presidency of the Port Authority attempt to shift the management burden towards the Ministry of Ecological Transition, controlled by the Popular Party, the physical memory of the chosen infrastructure raises doubts about the viability of the project. The Africa Dock, the designated interior space for the permanent mooring of a large generator ship, has recorded severe maneuverability incidents caused by the specific weather conditions of the area.
The vulnerability of the site became evident during the berthing maneuver changes within the port facility. In 2024, the ferry Ciudad de Ibiza, a ship from Naviera Armas Trasmediterránea (Baleària) that was operating without cargo or passengers at that moment, suffered a strong impact against the Africa Dock after being unexpectedly displaced by a gust of wind. The incident, which required an emergency intervention by Maritime Rescue using the ship Heroínas de Sávora and two port tugs, caused a small breach above the waterline. Although the shipping company ruled out technical failures in the propulsion and steering systems, the event highlighted the impact that adverse weather phenomena can have in this confined sector of the port.
Wind as a Factor of Financial and Technical Instability
For analysts examining the deployment of the electric generation ship, the lessons from the Ciudad de Ibiza incident transcend the mere event of commercial navigation. The size of the proposed floating power plant, typically ships with a high freeboard exposed to wind and significant draft, multiplies the so-called ‘sail effect’ that destabilized the passenger ferry. Keeping a vessel permanently connected to the port’s high voltage grid via cables and interconnection pipes at a point where wind gusts have already caused temporary loss of steering presents an engineering challenge that increases marine insurance costs and contingency budgets.
The Port Authority defends that the mooring method in inland waters sideswipes the reticence of the Maritime Captaincy and frees up the congested commercial berthing lines. However, port operators and business guilds remind that the space of the Africa Dock does not have the same natural shelter as other historical docks in the facility. A failure in the anchoring system or an unexpected displacement of an infrastructure housing generation turbines and heavy fuel oil tanks could jeopardize not only the island’s electricity supply but also the safety of adjacent terminals and the marine wind energy projects planned for the same historic area.
The Political Battle over Environmental Reports
The precedent of the ferry’s impact adds ammunition to the confrontation strategy of the PSOE and the critical sectors of the project. The thesis of the port authority president, Beatriz Calzada, to subordinate the entry of the Turkish plant to the environmental impact study of the autonomous government shifts the hot potato to the Popular Party. The technicians of the regional government must now assess whether the risk of collision due to adverse weather, evaluated after the dock’s history, invalidates the implementation of a floating power plant that already incurs fixed costs estimated at nearly 40 euros per minute simply for being available to the system.
The confluence of a history of wind-related incidents in the Africa Dock with a multi-million euro charter bill places the energy emergency solution in a scenario of high volatility. The Popular Party finds itself at a crossroads of endorsing a technical report in a location that has already shown deficiencies in shelter against storms or assuming the paralysis of a critical infrastructure whose absence prolongs the risk of structural blackouts in Gran Canaria. The financial clock continues to run for the island’s coffers while the geography and history of the Port of Las Palmas remind that, in the Atlantic, the urgency of politics often collides with the reality of navigation.
