Wärtsilä will supply an extension to a 53-MW Flexicycle power plant currently under construction near Dakar, Senegal. The extension will comprise two Wärtsilä 46 engines running on heavy fuel oil, with a combined capacity of 34 MW. Both phases of the project will be fast-track delivered on a turn-key basis.
The contract comes from ContourGlobal.
The 53 MW first phase is scheduled to be in operation in May 2016, with phase two scheduled to be up and running in October 2016. The power plant will feed electricity to the national grid under a 20-year PPA between ContourGlobal and Senelec, the national electricity company of Senegal. The project is financed by the IFC and OPIC.
The Senegal project is designed so that the plant can quickly be converted to natural gas as soon as it becomes available. Earlier this year, Senelec announced plans to invest in a FLNG regasification terminal. This will improve Senegal’s fuel security and lower the cost of electricity.
The new power plant will provide a 10% increase to Senegal’s current 860 MW total electricity generation capacity.
With the new project up and running, Wärtsilä’s installed capacity in Senegal will reach 465 MW, some 55 percent of the country’s total capacity.
In all of Africa, Wärtsilä has delivered approximately 6,500 MW of power plant capacity. Globally, Wärtsilä’s installed base is 58 GW in 175 countries.
The extension order was included in Wärtsilä’s order book in November 2015, whereas the contract for phase one was signed in July 2014.