Ethiopia will start building a major dam along the Nile River to generate hydro power to increase electricity production, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Saturday.
The Horn of Africa nation aims to produce 15.000 megawatts (MW) of power within 10 years, part of a strategy to spend a stunning 12 billion US dollar over 25 years to improve the poor country’s power-generating capabilities.
The plant will be 40 kilometers from the Sudan border in Benishangul Gumuz region and generate 6.000 megawatts of power, Addis Ababa-based Fortune newspaper reported last month.
Burundi in February became the sixth nation to sign an agreement on usage from the Nile River, enabling ratification of an accord that may strip Egypt of its veto power over projects using water from world’s longest river.
Outages (strømnedbrud) have been common in Ethiopia for five years.
The country rationed power for over five months last year with lights going off every second day, closing factories, hampering exports and fuelling a shortage of hard currency. Ethiopia has five other hydropower dam projects being built.
Power demand in Africa will rise by 150.000 MW between 2007 and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency
