Finnish power solutions group Wärtsilä says, to date, it has installed 470 power plants in Africa, with a total output of almost 6 GW, and is on track to complete its latest projects on the continent.

Wärtsilä business development manager for power plants in Africa Arnaud Gouet says the company’s presence in Africa, particularly in Southern Africa, is becoming significant and is likely to increase as the use of natural gas fuel is continually developed.

The company’s latest projects in Africa include the €138-million gas-fuelled plant, in Ressano Garcia, in southern Mozambique, which is on track for completion in May 2014.

Further, Wärtsilä signed a contract with a new investment company, comprising South Africa’s petrochemicals giant Sasol and Mozambique’s State-owned power utility Electricidade de Mocambique (EDM), in December last year. The new company, Central Termica de Ressano Garcia, will sell the power it generates from the Ressano Garcia plant to EDM.

The 2 ha power plant will produce about 1.4 GWh/y, that will represent more than 30% of the power consumed in the southern Mozambique grid, and will be powered by Wärtsilä’s 34SG (spark ignited) internal combustion engines, which will run on natural gas from the Pande and Temane gasfields.

Gouet says as the country has scarce water resources, the cooling medium of the plant is a closed-circuit radiator system that results in little water consumption.

Further, with minimal water consumption, the carbon emissions of the plant are considerably lower than that of any other thermal technology.

Wärtsilä is also constructing a substation and a gas pipeline, which will be connected to the existing pipeline at Ressano Garcia, as part of the project.

This project, which is of major strategic importance, is the first long-term investment that is part of the proposed Gas Master Plan of Mozambique.

Meanwhile, Wärtsilä has supplied Sasol New Energy with a purely gas-fuelled combustion engine power plant in South Africa, which was handed over to the customer in December 2012.

Wärtsilä’s scope of supply comprised the turnkey delivery of the complete power plant, including engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning. The plant is powered by 18 Wärtsilä 34SG generating sets running on natural gas, with an output of 180 MW.

The company also handed over a €1.2-mil- lion power plant to independent power producer Kribi Power Development Com-pany, in Cameroon, in March.

Wärtsilä says this is the largest gas engine power plant installed on the African conti-nent. The power plant will be located in Kribi, a sea port on the Gulf of Guinea coast in the Republic of Cameroon.

The electricity generated will be fed to the national grid and the plant will help diversify Cameroon’s power generation, which is predominantly based on hydropower.