Senegal Loses 200MW as Senelec Targets Fix by Thursday

Senegal's national power utility Senelec is working to restore about 200 megawatts lost to the grid after a failure at a Karpowership floating power plant, with General Director Pape Toby Gaye saying Monday he expects a return to normal operations by Thursday if repairs proceed as planned.

The main outage stems from a malfunction in the storage and regasification system aboard the Karpowership vessel, a floating power plant that generates electricity by burning natural gas delivered and stored on board. The fault involves a booster pump responsible for delivering pressurised gas to the plant. A replacement pump has already arrived in Dakar and is due to be installed before recommissioning tests begin.

Second plant also affected by turbine fault

A separate outage is affecting the West African Energy (WAE) plant at Cap des Biches, where one of two turbines is offline. Technical teams are continuing inspections to determine what repairs the machine will need before it can return to service. While waiting for a sufficient supply of natural gas, the Cap des Biches plant is running on diesel.

Gaye said logistical constraints on fuel delivery sometimes shorten the settling time needed before diesel can be used, allowing impurities to clog filters more quickly and requiring additional maintenance shutdowns.

Senelec is contending with the outages at a time of high electricity demand driven by elevated temperatures. Gaye also pointed to rising input costs and cash flow pressures as factors complicating the utility's ability to keep all of its production capacity available.

The current disruptions are not the first this month. On September 6, Senelec reported a separate technical constraint at the WAE plant, at a time when the facility had about 240 megawatts available, making it one of the main sources of generation in Senegal's national electricity system.

The pace of repairs at both plants over the coming days will determine whether Senelec's Thursday target for a return to normal supply holds, or whether Senegalese consumers face a longer stretch of reduced power.