Ethiopia's $5B hydro dam on Nile goes operational

GUBA, ETHIOPIA - FEBRUARY 20: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile went operational after the Ethiopian prime minister inaugurated it on Sunday. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, accompanied by higher officials, senior military officers, and eminent personalities, cut the ribbon inaugurating the $5billion hydro project in a ceremony broadcast live on local TV channels. The GERD, Ethiopia’s flagship project being built solely through money raised by citizens, will be initially generating 750 megawatts of electricity of the project’s 6,000 megawatts installed capacity that will be achieved within five to seven years when the dam’s reservoir gets full to its 70 billion cubic meters capacity. At present, the reservoir holds 18.5 billion cubic meters of water through impounding during the past two consecutive main rainy seasons of June, July, and August. Forest clearing for the third impounding is well underway. The GERD is a 1.8-kilometer (1.1 miles) wide and 147-meter (482-foot) tall dam and currently Africa’s largest hydro scheme that is expected to boost Ethiopia’s electricity power supply. About 60% of the Ethiopian population lives in the dark at present. A power interconnection scheme also makes it possible for the Horn of Africa nation to sell electricity to neighboring countries. After getting fully operational in five to seven years, the project will be generating 15,760-gigawatt hours of electricity per annum, said Abreha Belay, the country’s defense minister and board chairman of the GERD project. Abiy said considering the challenges faced over the past three years “today’s achievement was a miracle born out of divine intervention.” It was after the coming to power of Abiy that the GERD, whose implementation was sluggish prior to 2018, got a boost after a design revision.(Footage by Mohammed Abdu Abdulbaqi /Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)