Senegal: 200 MW offline, Senelec aims for normalcy by Thursday

In Senegal, multiple simultaneous outages are causing power cuts. Pape Toby Gaye, the general director of Senelec, stated on Monday, September 21, that a failure at Karpowership has removed approximately 200 MW from the grid. He hopes for a return to normal operations starting Thursday, provided the repairs proceed as planned.

The primary unavailability concerns the floating power plant operated by Karpowership. A malfunction is affecting the storage and regasification system, specifically at a booster pump responsible for delivering pressurized gas to the plant. A replacement pump has already arrived in Dakar and is set to be installed before the recommissioning tests.

A second outage is impacting the West African Energy plant at Cap des Biches, where one of the two turbines is offline. Technical teams are continuing inspections of the machine to assess the necessary interventions before it can be brought back online.

While awaiting sufficient availability of natural gas, the Cap des Biches plant is operating on diesel. Pape Toby Gaye noted that logistical constraints on fuel delivery sometimes reduce the settling time before its use. This can lead to impurities clogging the filters more quickly, necessitating additional maintenance shutdowns.

Senelec is also contending with high electricity demand due to elevated temperatures. The general director mentioned the rising costs of inputs and cash flow tensions, as several production capacities are temporarily unavailable.

These disruptions are not unprecedented this month. On September 6, Senelec had already reported a technical constraint at the WAE plant, indicating that it then had approximately 240 MW available, making it one of the main sources of production in the national electricity system.