NARUBI (Reuters) – Ethiopia officially opened Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam on Tuesday, a project that will provide energy to millions of Ethiopians while deepening rifts with Egypt, an unknown downstream in the region.
Ethiopia is the second largest country in the continent with a population of 120 million, and he believes the $5 billion Greater Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in the tributary of the Nile River is at the heart of its economic development ambitions.
Beginning in 2011, the dam’s power generation should eventually rise from 750 MW of 750 MW to 5,150 MW, which is its two active turbines are already in production.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Ethiopia will use this energy to improve Ethiopian electricity while also exporting surplus electricity to the region.
“Blast that dam”
However, Ethiopia’s downstream neighbors have watched the project progress in fear.
Egypt built its own Aswan High Dam on the Nile in the 1960s, fearing that GERD would limit its water supply during the drought and could lead to the construction of other upstream dams.
It was fiercely opposed to the dam from the outset, believing it violated the water agreement with the British colonial era and posed an existing threat.
Egypt has a population of about 108 million and its freshwater is about 90%.
Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman Tamim Khallaf told Reuters on Monday that Egypt will continue to closely monitor developments on the Blue Nile and “exercise its rights to take all appropriate measures to defend and protect the interests of the Egyptian people.”
Sudan joined Egypt’s call for a legally binding agreement on filling and operating dams, but could also benefit from better flood management and access to cheap energy.
Cairo’s position was supported by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term. Trump said it was a dangerous situation and Cairo could eventually “blast that dam”, but his administration failed to reach an agreement on the project and years of talks failed to reach an agreement.
“Not a threat”
Ethiopia insists that the development of the project is a sovereign right and therefore is imminent. In 2020, it began filling reservoirs in phases, while not believing that the dam would not significantly harm downstream countries.
“The Renaissance dam is not a threat, but a common opportunity,” Abby told Parliament in July. “It will not only boost Ethiopia’s energy and development.”
Independent studies have shown that so far, no significant disruption to downstream flows has been recorded – in part due to favorable rainfall and careful filling of reservoirs during the wet season within five years.
Magnus Taylor of the International Crisis Group think tank said that in Ethiopia has faced years of internal armed conflict, mainly along racial lines.
“The idea that Ethiopia should be able to build dams on its own territory … should not be pushed by Egypt, which is something that most Ethiopians will fall behind,” he said.
According to local media reports, the Ethiopian Central Bank provided 91% of the funding of the project, while 9% were funded by Ethiopians without any foreign aid.
Has nothing to do with the grid
The dam’s reservoir has flooded a larger area than Greater London, and the government said it will provide stable water supply for downstream hydropower and irrigation while limiting flooding and drought.
However, rural Ethiopia may have to wait longer to benefit from the extra power: only about half of the people are related to the State Grid.
Matt Bryden, of the think tank research, said they would still get worse despite the deterioration of relations with Egypt on the dam.
Inland Ethiopia plans to enter the ocean through its old rival Eritrea or Somalia, with Egypt leaving its weight behind behind Asmara and Mogadishu.
Blyden said the idea of strategic rival Egypt not only determines the use of water for the Nile River, but also the opportunity to enter the Red Sea, which is obviously unacceptable to Addis Ababa.
(Report from the Netherlands in Nairobi; Mohamed Ezz and Alexander Dziadosz in Cairo; Edited by Aidan Lewis
