Boulaos is a 108 MW oil power station in Djibouti, Djibouti. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 81k homes (estimated). It ranks #2 of 3 Djibouti power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1999, it is around 27 years old — long-established. In context, oil supplies about 65.0% of Djibouti's electricity; the national grid averages 450 gCO₂/kWh (35.0% low-carbon) (2024).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1023066.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 operating-unit sum (location L100000409059); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
Technically it is described as Engine. 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.
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 11.6°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 an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion 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.
Djibouti has 1 oil power plant in this dataset, together about 108 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 11.5759, 43.1569 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Boulaos is a 108 MW source-record oil power plant in Djibouti, Djibouti, commissioned in 1999.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 81,092 homes (estimated).
