Ethiopia’s energy export reached to new heights

Girma Sentera    07-07-16

During the recent visit of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Kenya has signed a power purchase agreement with Ethiopia in a deal that will see Kenya receive 400mw of hydro-power in the next eighteen months. This emerged PM Hailemariam visited Olkaria Power plant in Naivasha, Kenya as part of his tour of the country.

Hailemariam Desalegn has few years ago said that Ethiopia intends to export power to seven neighboring countries after the completion of the Great Ethiopian Dam.

As a portion of that, The Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), the state owned electric generation and transmission body signed a deal with Tanzania for the purchase of 400MW of electric power. The deal will make Tanzania will be Ethiopia’s second biggest client for electric power once the project commences operation in the coming five years of the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II).

The master plan of electricity and energy aims to boost power exports from 223MW a year now to at least 5,000MW. Ethiopia’s potential power production capacity from hydro as well as geothermal, wind and solar energy may be more than 60,000MW, according to official estimates.

That is equal to roughly half the total current installed capacity in Africa of 147,000MW. These ambitious plans have been noted as visionary by several reputable scholars and institutions. For example: The renowned Financial Times said a few months ago:

This is one part of an ambitious plan to transform the country into one of the top, and cheapest, power suppliers in Africa, with the potential of $1bn a year in revenues from renewable power for Ethiopia and cheap supplies for a region short of electricity to power much-needed industrial production.

As part of a $22bn African Union backed project to develop a pan-continental electricity highway by 2020, Ethiopia plans to increase its power exports to Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan, and establish grid links to South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and even to Yemen across the Red Sea.

Indeed Ethiopia has been making huge investments in terms of hydropower generation capacity under the 5-years Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP).

In 2005 the total hydropower generation capacity of Ethiopia was only 714 MW and the total power generated was only 3,112 GWH. However, by 2010 the power generation capacity reached 2,000 MW and the total power generated was 7,689 GWH.

As per the GTP, Ethiopia’s power generating capacity is planned to reach 10000megawatts by 2015. On the other hand, the length of power transmission lines across the country was only 8,380 km in 2005. But, by 2010 there were to 12,147 km power lines connecting electric power grids.

Similarly, the number of power distribution lines across the country increased from 25,000 km in 2005 to 126,038 km in 2010. As per the GTP, the length of distribution lines is expected to increase from 126,038 km to 258,038 kms.

The total number of registered electric power user households was less than 950,000 in 2005. But by 2010, it was more than 2 million. As per the GTP, it is expected that there will be 4 million registered households connected to electric distribution lines.

With all these works well underway, it is expected that the electricity coverage of Ethiopia will reach more than 75%, thereby connecting Ethiopians farmers with the 21st century.

The government has also been aggressively investing in alternative energy sources. A joint steering committee has been set up under the Ministry of Water & Energy and the Environmental Protection Authority to develop and implement clean and renewable energy projects which can later benefit from carbon trading schemes. So far, the total four projects identified and handed over to the Ministry are expected to reduce about 65,720 tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

The Development Bank of Ethiopia, in collaboration with the World Bank, has announced that it would create about 800 million Birr fund to promote geothermal energy projects, while another 800 million Birr would be added as part of the World Bank’s private sector initiative.

Similarly, several works have been conducted in harnessing geothermal energy. In this regard, the major one is Aluto Langano geothermal project which is located about 200km south of Addis Ababa in the Rift Valley Lakes Region 15km northwest of Adami Tulu Substation and the 132kv transmission line to the left of Hawassa road.

There has been several efforts to harness wind power in the past decade. The major one is the Aysha Wind Farm. Aysha Wind Power construction project site is located approximately 7 km south of Aysha town, 47km to Ethio-Djibouti border and 170km from Dire Dawa town on the way from Dire Dawa to Djibouti route. Aysha Wind have 300MW wind turbines to be constructed in two phases which the first phase will be installation of a 120 MW wind turbines.

Another major undertaking is the Adama I Wind Farm. The Adama I Wind Farm Project is located 95 km east of Addis Ababa and 3 km north-west of Adama city was completed and started operation on started on March 31, 2012. The wind farm have 34 turbines with the generation capacity of each turbine at 1.5MW. The height of the turbine pylon (tower) is 65 meter. Production capacity of the wind farm is 51 MW with an average annual energy production of 157 Gwh.

Ashegoda Wind Farm, which has an installed capacity of generating 120 Mega Watts of electricity, is built 10 km from Mekelle, the capital city of the Tigray regional state by the French company Vergnet SA. This project is part of the Ethiopian government’s plan to generate up to 890 MW of wind energy by the end of the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) period.

Recently, the government signed of a contract to build the largest geothermal power station in Ethiopia with Reykjavik Geothermal, a European company from Iceland. Under the agreement, Reykjavik Geothermal is to build the plant in two different stages of each 500 MW with an overall planned capacity at the end of 1,000 MW.

Furthermore, since 2012, the Ministry of Water and Energy installed more than 15,000 solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity to rural households and also institutions like rural telecommunications stations, health centers, and health posts. Now, these rural households and service centers are now beneficiaries of solar energy technology, which is based on distributed power technology as there is no grid connectivity in those areas, and will provide enough power for lighting, mobile phones, computers and a solar fridge for each household. In fact, the program is progressing as per schedule to reach its target of installing solar panels in 30,000 households.

In conclusion, the effort to harness geothermal, solar and wind powers is a key component of Ethiopia's effort to realize the energy mix strategy and to realize its vision of becoming the power house of east Africa. It should understand that the success of our development and democratization has a positive contribution not only to Ethiopia but to all neighbors as well; and that a policy that is free of arrogance and greed would contribute to changing the entire region.  These are the premises on which our policy is based.