Ethiopia sees exporting power as it opens New HP project

May 15, 2010(ADDIS ABABA) – Ethiopian Prime minister Meles Zenawi said that his country is aggressively working to beat the chronic energy outrage facing the country and to turn itself into a power exporting nation.

The premier was speaking on Friday at an inauguration ceremony of a newly built power plant, the Tana Beles Multi-purpose Hydro-electric Power Project, a third Hydro power project for the horn of Africa’s country to be opened in less than one year.

Launched in 2005, the dam was fully financed by the Ethiopian government with an investment of around $500 million.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the occasion said that his country is relentlessly working to boost its current 2,000 MW capacity to 10,000 MW in the next five years period using renewable energy sources.

Meles said that the Ethiopian government is putting Billions of Dollars of investment in to the sector as part of the ongoing efforts to meet the ever growing local power demand and to further export power to neighboring countries.

The Beles Multi-purpose Hydro-electric Power Project has the capacity to generate 460 megawatt of electricity, raising the country’s power potential by 30 percent. It uses water from Tana Lake, a water body believed by many to be where the Nile River originates.

The project manager of the corporation, Kifle Horo said that as Beles is a multi-purpose project, the water that comes out after producing electricity will be used to develop over 140,000 hectares of land.

During the past few years, Ethiopia had come in to series power shortages which forced the country into power rationing across the nation and also led to closure of huge power consuming factories, affected its exports and investment.

(ST)