- The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is set to be Africa’s largest hydroelectric scheme.
- The 3.7 billion-euro project is expected to generate over 5,000MW of electricity.
- Sudan hopes the project will help regulate annual flooding.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is set to be Africa’s largest hydroelectric scheme. Still, it has been at the centre of a regional water rights dispute since construction began in 2011.
According to Addis Abeba, Ethiopia’s electrification and development are dependent on the facility. The 3.7 billion-euro project is expected to generate more than 5,000MW of electricity, doubling Ethiopia’s total energy output.
According to state media, the dam began generating 375MW of electricity from one of its turbines on Sunday. The 145-meter-high dam is located on the Blue Nile River in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of western Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border.
Sudan hopes the project will help regulate annual flooding, but it is concerned that its dams will be harmed if no agreement on the GERD’s operation is reached. Both countries have pushed Ethiopia to reach a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the massive dam, but talks under the auspices of the African Union (AU) have failed to yield a breakthrough.
The dam was built during the tenure of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a Tigrayan leader who ruled Ethiopia for more than two decades before his death in 2012. In the year of the project’s launch, civil servants contributed one month’s salary to the project, and the government has since issued dam bonds aimed at Ethiopians both at home and abroad.