30 August 2013, Maputo – Aggreko, a world leader in the supply of temporary power and temperature control solutions. in conjunction with its project partners has celebrated the expansion of its gas-fired power plant at Gigawatt Park in Ressano Garcia, Mozambique.
The extension to the facility was officially inaugurated by the Mozambique Minister of Energy, Salvador Namburete during a ceremony, Friday at the project site. The expansion adds an additional 122 megawatts, MW, of capacity to the Ressano Garcia facility, bringing the total generation output from the plant to 232 MW.
The Aggreko power plant began operating in July 2012 in what was the realisation of a truly ground-breaking initiative to build the world’s first interim cross-border Independent Power Producer, IPP, project. Power generated on site was supplied directly into the Southern African Power Pool, SAPP, with the first off-takers from the project being Electricidade de Moçambique, EDM, the Mozambique power utility and Eskom, the South African power utility.
Following the success of the first stage of Ressano Garcia, Aggreko announced in March 2013 that it had signed agreements with both EDM and NamPower, the Namibian power utility, to supply an additional 122 MW from the project. Following this announcement, work began immediately to more than double the generating capacity of the plant. As Aggreko designed and built the plant infrastructure to allow for modular increases in capacity, adding the additional power generation was achieved in just 12 weeks.
By utilising the exceptional regional transmission infrastructure of the SAPP, Aggreko will now supply power generated in Mozambique to three national utilities, including to Namibia located more than 1,500 kilometres away. Highlighting the mutual cooperation between the utilities to make this possible, both EDM and Eskom will play a key role in transmitting this power to Namibia. EDM will transmit the power over its network to the South African border where Eskom on behalf of NamPower will handle the wheeling of the power across the South African grid network to Namibia.
Aggreko’s Ressano Garcia power plant is situated on the Mozambique / South African border, 90 kilometres north-west of Maputo at Gigawatt Park. Natural gas to the project is being supplied by the Matola Gas Company SA through their gas infrastructure at Ressano Garcia and Aggreko is generating power utilising a sub-concession agreement with Gigawatt Mozambique SA.
“Ressano Garcia is the world’s largest cross-border interim power plant, with 232 MW of gas-fuelled power generation being utilised by three national utilities,” commented David Taylor-Smith, Regional Managing Director, Aggreko Europe Middle East and Africa. “This project highlights the precision and speed in which Aggreko can deliver large-scale temporary power capacity, to help our customers address gaps in energy supply as and when they arise.”
Paulinus Shilamba, Managing Director, NamPower said: “This innovative approach to securing an effective power supply for the people of Namibia is a great example of the spirit of Southern African cooperation. This unique project will contribute to the provision of a reliable power supply across Namibia and support the continued development of the country.”
Augusto de Sousa Fernando, CEO of EDM added: “Following the first project enabled by EDM, in its role as the national power utility and system operator in Mozambique, we would once again like to welcome the second phase of the Aggreko interim power plant at Ressano Garcia, which will assist EDM and its partners in the SAPP to bridge the period until we implement our permanent plants in Mozambique.”
– African Press Organisation
