What South Sudan could gain from Ethiopia’s mega-dam project
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Sunday inaugurated the electricity production from the country’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile River amidst past uproar.
But analysts argue that the Ethiopian project could be the game-changer for quenching the thirst for power in the region, notably, with South Sudan being a probable beneficiary.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is expected to produce over 5,000 megawatts, which will benefit the neighbouring countries, said Edmund Yakani, CEPO Executive Director. This is more than the country’s production capacity.
“South Sudan will likely have the opportunity to borrow power from the dam because that dam is generating a lot of power, which we can benefit from as a land lock country as long as Fulla Falls is yet in the process of construction,” he added.
The GERD, which is the largest hydropower grid in Africa, has been at the centre of a regional dispute ever since the Ethiopian government laid the groundbreaking for the project in 2011.
Egypt and Sudan view the dam as a threat because of their dependence on Nile waters and have been opposed to the continuation of the project. But Addis Ababa deems it essential for its electrification and development.
The $4.2 billion project has ultimately been expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity, more than doubling Ethiopia’s electricity output.
State media reported that the 145-metre high dam – which lies on the Blue Nile River in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of western Ethiopia, not far from the border with Sudan – had started generating 375 megawatts of electricity from one of its turbines on Sunday.
Resistance
Egypt, which depends on the Nile waters for about 97 per cent of its irrigation and drinking water, considers the GERD as an existential threat. Sudan, on the other hand, fears that without an agreement on the operation, its dams will be harmed, despite the fact that it hopes the project will regulate annual flooding.
Both countries have been pushing Ethiopia for a binding deal over the filling and operation of the massive dam, but talks under the auspices of the African Union have failed to reach a breakthrough.
The position and next step by the Sudan and Egypt are yet to be known since the final filling and inauguration of the power grid has been done following several failed attempts to find a common ground on the operationalisation of the project.
In terms of regional interest and politics, South Sudan could be ready to support Ethiopia because it will be facing the same problem when it tries to engage in reviving the Fulla Falls River Nile project. The same players like Egypt and Sudan could resist the move.
The dam was initiated by former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the leader who ruled Ethiopia for more than two decades until his death in 2012.
In the year since the project’s launch, civil servants contributed one month’s salary towards the project, and the government has since issued dam bonds targeting Ethiopians at home and abroad.
Early this year Dr Abiy said the GERD would save the Nile Basin countries from various development hurdles, including devastating floods and drought.
He said the Nile basin region received 85 per cent of its water from the Ethiopian highlands, which would be regulated by GERD both during the rainy and dry seasons and to improve livelihoods through agriculture and electricity.
“Ethiopia’s intention in constructing the GERD is to enable the regulation function so that electricity generation from the infrastructure is uniform throughout the year. This means, as a hydropower dam, the GERD does not consume water. Rather, the water continues to flow downstream uninterrupted. The benefits for downstream countries are often untold.”
“A large quantity of the flow (about 90%) occurs within four months of the rainy season, and during the rest of the year, the mighty Abbay trickles like a small river. The dam is needed to regulate this variable flow by reducing flooding and augmenting dry flow,” Dr Abiy said in a statement in January this year.
Dr Abiy explained that the dam would shield Sudan from floods and water shortages through regulated flow while Egypt would benefit through water conservation instead of wastage through floods and spillage over the Aswan Dam.
He further said that globally and in the Nile region, the GERD as a clean renewable energy source would help to reduce emissions that could avoid up to 10.6 million tons of greenhouse gases if it were produced from fuel, coal, or gas plants.
“Hence, development of the GERD plays an important role in meeting and increasing renewable energy generation share towards sustainable development goal 7 and better water management of goal 6 of the SDGs, as well as meeting many targets of Africa’s Agenda 2063,” Dr Abiy stated.
