Ethiopia plans to provide 3 neighboring countries with electricity
Feb 9, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia has an ambitious multibillion-dollar (-euro) plan to provide all its citizens with electricity within eight years, as well as to supply some power to three neighboring countries, a top manager of the state-owned electricity company said Friday.
Ethiopia can do this because it has a lot of potential to generate hydroelectric power, said Mihret Debebe, general manager of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation.
The country is the source of a branch of the Nile River called the Blue Nile, which is believed to have huge power-generating potential. The Blue Nile merges with the White Nile in Sudan to flow into Egypt as the Nile River.
By 2010, Ethiopia will generate more than 4,000 megawatts, enabling the country to provide 50 percent of its 77 million people with electricity, Mihret told The Associated Press.
At present only 20 percent of Ethiopians get electricity and the country generates about 800 megawatts of power, he said.
“The costs of meeting the target to provide electricity to the entire country will be more than 100 billion birr (US$11.7 billion; A9 billion),” Sendeku Araya, spokesman of the corporation told the AP. “The costs will be covered by the Ethiopian government and the (Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation), through foreign loans agreed upon by various international donors.”
He said that the government was in discussions with China, the European Union, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, among other donors.
Sendeku said that he did not have figures on Ethiopia’s power generation potential or how much needs to be produced to supply the whole country.
Next year, experts are expected to complete their projections of what Ethiopia’s power generation potential is and exactly how much is needed to power up the entire country, said Sendeku.
Five new dams are being built and the country plans to expand existing geothermal, wind and gas-turbine power generation projects, Mihret said.
Ethiopia’s ambitions are not confined to its borders, he said.
“We already have plans in place to begin supplying power, hopefully, to Sudan and Djibouti by 2009, and Kenya by 2010,” Mihret said. He did not say how much power Ethiopia will supply those countries.
(AP)