Oil power plant in Southern Province, Sierra Leone. Approximate location 7.7675, -12.2931.
OilSouthern ProvinceSierra Leone
Bonthe Works is a 23 MW oil power plant in Southern Province, Sierra Leone. It is operated by Sierra Rutile Limited. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 17k homes (estimated). It ranks #3 of 3 Sierra Leone power plants by installed capacity. In context, oil supplies about 4.8% of Sierra Leone's electricity; the national grid averages 48 gCO₂/kWh (95.2% low-carbon) (2024).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1023164.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and fuel fields on this page are source-record values from the upstream open dataset. They are useful for identification and ranking, but they have not been upgraded to a 2026 registry/GEM-location verified value.
capacity: WRI GPPD; fuel: WRI GPPD
Oil-fired plants burn heavy fuel oil or diesel, usually as peaking or backup capacity on islands and grids without gas pipelines; high fuel cost keeps their utilisation low.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Sierra Rutile Limited.
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 7.8°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a corrosive environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C4 — High), with humidity / wetness the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #2 largest oil power plant of 2 in Sierra Leone by capacity.
Sierra Leone has 2 oil power plants in this dataset, together about 76 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 7.7675, -12.2931 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Bonthe Works is a 23 MW oil power plant in Southern Province, Sierra Leone.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 17,269 homes (estimated).
Bonthe Works is operated by Sierra Rutile Limited.
