By Ebrima Jallow
MAN Energy Solutions will be supplying two MAN 9L51/60 engines for a newly built power plant in Brikama, the second-largest town in The Gambia.
The plant, which is operated by energy provider Nawec (National Water & Electricity Company), will feed a total of 18 MW of electrical output into the national grid, consequently stabilising the energy supply of the West African country.
“As in many African countries, a reliable energy supply is one of the most urgent challenges in The Gambia. Only just under half the population has a reliable access to electricity. With the power plant in Brikama, we are now increasing the country’s generation capacity by roughly 20 percent,” says Waldemar Wiesner, head of region Middle-East Africa, power plant sales, at MAN Energy Solutions.
With an area of only about 11,000 square kilometers, The Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa continent and its overall generation capacity of 100 MW still falls short of the demand of the 2.1 million inhabitants.
“To safeguard the population’s energy supply, Nawec trusts the generation technology provided by MAN Energy Solutions for what is already the fourth time. After completing the new plant in Brikama, MAN is providing a total of 42 MW across the country, which is a third of the country’s total capacity,” adds Wiesner.
The dual fuel MAN 9L51/60 engines can run on diesel or natural gas. They are turbocharged and emit NOx below World Bank limits, according to the company.
MAN Energy Solutions is currently involved in many power plant projects in Africa and has offices in Egypt, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria.
Wiesner said: “MAN Energy Solutions can look back on a long history of success in Africa. For more than half a century, we have actively carried out power plant projects in more than 30 African countries and have achieved a power generation capacity of more than 3.2 GW. In addition to the power plant in The Gambia, we are currently building further plants in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Nigeria and the Sudan, proving the reliability of our power plant solutions in providing the population a stable energy supply.”
