Ethiopia: Renaissance Dam to Produce 700 Megawatts in 2022
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The Ethiopian state minister for National ICT and Digital Economy says that the Renaissance Dam is the most important project implemented by her country among various projects to produce electric power.
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The Renaissance Dam will boost Ethiopia's installed power generating capacity by %14
Ethiopian state minister for Communications, Information Technology, and Digital Economy, Huria Ali Mahdi, confirmed that "Ethiopia is undertaking various projects on electronic power, chief among them the Grand Renaissance Dam."
During her participation in the online Africa Tech Festival conference on Thursday, Mahdi revealed that the dam is expected to start producing 700 megawatts of electricity next year, which will boost the country's installed power generating capacity by 14%.
The Ethiopian minister had previously said in October 2020 that the dam is expected to start producing electricity within 12 months, but she did not mention a specific date.
Ethiopia's installed power generating capacity is currently 4,967 megawatts.
The construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam began in 2011, with the aim of generating electricity.
Negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan over the $4 billion dam did not lead to an agreement, despite the three countries signing a declaration of principles in 2015, which stipulated the commitment to reach an agreement on filling and operating the dam through dialogue.
On Sunday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi called to quickly reach an agreement concerning the crisis of the dam.
In a speech in the opening of the fourth session of the Cairo Water Week, el-Sisi pointed out that the per capita share of water in Egypt does not exceed 560 cubic meters annually, at a time when the UN defined water poverty as 1,000 cubic meters.
He stressed that Egypt is the driest country in the world, with the lowest rate of rainfall among countries, which forces the country to exclusively depend on the Nile River that comes from outside its borders.
Ethiopia has been locked in difficult negotiations for years over the dam with Egypt and Sudan, the two downstream countries of the Nile, which have expressed concerns about water shortages due to the dam.
The Security Council called on Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia to resume negotiations, stressing the need to return to the declaration of principles signed in 2015.
