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Ethiopia on track to generating electricity from Africa’s largest power plant in 18 months
The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is opposed by Egypt, which says it will reduce the flow of the Nile, the world’s longest river that provides almost all its water. Egypt’s opposition to the project blocked Ethiopia’s access to foreign credit – which turned out quite well for the country – Ethiopia has funded the entire project by itself.
“The only option on the table was to construct the dam by our own capacity,” Zadig said, adding that the state-owned Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation and public contributions would fund the rest of the project.
Sudan, the other affected nation, supports the project that’s scheduled for completion in 2018, partly because it will allow the country to import cheaper Ethiopian electricity. The dam is being built 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Sudanese border on the Blue Nile River, the main tributary of the Nile.
Two turbines at the plant will start producing 750 megawatts of power during the Ethiopian calendar year that begins September 11, depending on rainfall patterns.
In 2012, Ethiopia invited an international panel of experts to study the project, which the government says will help curb flooding and improve water storage. The panel concluded in June that further assessments need to be made on GERD’s regional impact. It also advised modifications to the design to strengthen it structurally. Efforts by Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan to form a committee to oversee the probes on the downstream effects have reached an impasse over the role of foreign experts.
Egypt wants construction paused while the studies are done on an issue that is a matter of “national security,” Badr Abdelatty, a spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, said in a phone interview on March 15.
“We ask upon the other side to be serious and to move forward to accept having international experts imported to assess the impact,” he said. “Also for Ethiopians to provide more studies, more statistics.”
