The President of Senegal, H.E Macky Sall has inaugurated a 120 Megawatts power plant that is designed to convert to the use of natural gas as soon it comes on stream from domestic fields which are currently under development.
The facility, co-developed by Africa50, Melec PowerGen (MPG), and the statel utility Senelec, is located in Malicounda, in Western Senegal, 67kilometres from Dakar.
The power plant started operations in August 2022 utilizing Diesel fuel, which will be converted to natural gas when the first of several hydrocarbon production projects come on stream before the end of 2023. The plant will increase Senegal’s generation capacity by 8% and will substantially reduce generation costs, the government has promised.
The €154Million plant construction benefitted from financing through equity and senior debt, provided by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the OPEC Fund for International Development (OPEC Fund), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) and Banque Ouest Africaine de Developpement (BOAD) as senior lenders following a prior EUR 75Million bridge financing arranged by Orabank Sénégal.
