The Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectric power project, On the lower course of the Omo River in Ethiopia and built at a cost of US$1.8 billion, the 1,870-MW Gibe III hydroelectric project has begun generating electricity. The dam, which was commissioned this year, is generating 800 MW of electricity into the national grid.

The project, the third largest hydroelectric plant in Africa with a power output of about 1870 Megawatt (MW), will increase Ethiopia’s power generation capacity by 234% according to Alemayehu Tegenu,cabinet affairs advisor of the Prime minister and former Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy. Gibe III consists of a roller-compacted concrete dam 797 feet in height a reservoir that has the potential to reserve 14,700 million m3 of water. Five of Gibe III’s ten turbines have started generating power. The ten turbines each have generating capacity of 187 MW, although current drought conditions means the five operational ones aren’t producing their maximum capacity.

The power will provide an important contribution to Ethiopia’s socio-economic development by feeding the country’s grid as well as facilitating more power to the country’s power-export program and assisting regional integration among neighboring countries through the interconnected power links. The project brings Ethiopiaone step closer to solving chronic ower shortages, which the government has blamed on drought conditions, that have left businesses and homes struggling to meet their daily needs.

The facility is 94 miles downstream of the powerhouse for the 420-MW Gilgel Gibe II hydroelectric project and is the third plant on the Gibe-Omo hydroelectric cascade. Along with Gibe II, the 184-MW Gilgel Gibe project is also upstream of Gibe III. In addition to the first three facilities, the Ethiopian government plans to build two additional facilities on the Omo River the 1,450-MW Gibe IV and 660-MW Gibe V. The biggest hydro-electric generator by far will be the 6 000 MW plant on the Grand Ethiopan Rennaisance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile where work began in April 2011 and is halfway complete.
The Ethiopian government’s ambitious five-year development plan called Growth and Transformation Plan I (GTP I) 2015-2020 envisages increasing power generation capacity from the current 4 400 MW to 17 300 MW.

The late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi vowed to complete the dam “at any cost”, saying about critics of the dam that “They don’t want to see developed Africa; they want us to remain undeveloped and backward to serve their tourists as a museum.
Critics however claim the new dam will result in the death of Lk Turkana, the world's largest desert lake, which is almost completely dependent on the Omo River for replenishing its water levels. The dam filling process will reduce the lake’s inflow by about two-thirds, for an estimated three years.

Africa Team

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