Recently, the Ethiopian government announced that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has churned out over 2,700 gigawatt hours (GWH) of electricity in the last 10 months.
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The Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) reported this behemoth hydroelectric station has outdone its power generation goals for the first 10 months of the 2023/2024 Ethiopian fiscal year, which commenced on July 8, 2023, as per state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate late Wednesday.
Statistics from EEP reveal that the dam’s output swelled by around 26 percent above the planned 2,152.8 GWH.
The boost in power from GERD stems from its greater water storage, enabling its duo of operational turbines to blaze at peak capacity, as EEP highlighted.
This noteworthy milestone means GERD has contributed approximately 16 percent of Ethiopia’s cumulative 16,900 GWH of electricity generated in the same period from various power plants nationwide. Once the remaining 11 units on the dam kick into gear, it could inflate the country’s current power production by 83 percent.
Back in April, the Office of National Coordination for the Construction of GERD declared that over 95 percent of the project was complete. When fully operational, the dam is slated to boast a generating capacity of 5,150 megawatts, delivering an annual energy yield of 15,760 GWH, as EEP notes.
The Horn of Africa nation embarked on building GERD on the Nile River in April 2011. This colossal hydro power initiative has since stirred quite a ruckus among the trio of Nile-bound nations—Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan.
Ethiopia consistently underscores that the dam will energize its developmental dreams and catapult it toward achieving lower-middle-income status soon. Conversely, Egypt and Sudan remain anxious about the dam’s impact on their water allotments from the river.
