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CAIRO / ADDIS ABABA
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Sunday inaugurated power generation from the country’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile, a milestone in the controversial multi-billion dollar project.
Abiy, accompanied by senior officials, toured the power plant and pressed a series of buttons on a touchscreen, a move that officials say kicked off production.
The announcement of the start of power generation at the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia showed that major crises are not solved by populist propaganda and aimless diplomatic maneuvering, analysts said.
Such a swift approach did not replace the absence of more appropriate Egyptian-Sudanese efforts to effectively pressure Addis Ababa to sign a binding agreement that would have guaranteed water rights for all parties, the officials added. analysts.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a brief statement on the start of power generation, considering the decision as an illustration of the “persistence of the Ethiopian side in violating its obligations under the Declaration of Principles Agreement of 2015 “.
The new phase, part of a dam development plan begun some 20 years ago, confirms that Ethiopia’s vision of the Renaissance dam is working. Ultimately, the dam is expected to provide electricity to the 60% of Ethiopia’s population who currently lack it while exporting excess electricity to neighboring countries.
Abiy Ahmed, in an effort to reassure Egypt and Sudan, said, “I congratulate the downstream countries for the start of power generation and emphasize that the benefit will be mutual. The waters of the Nile will continue to flow to Egypt and Sudan and no harm will befall them.”
Egyptian experts have tried to downplay the importance of the dam’s electricity production, in its second phase. They had previously highlighted the difficulties encountered by Ethiopian engineers in generating electricity. The news that the turbines were producing electricity surprised them.
Cairo University water resources professor Abbas Sharaki said the Ethiopian decision was “expected, but the timing was not known”.
The start-up of the generators by Ethiopia indicates that in fact Egypt and Sudan lacked sufficient information on the progress of the Renaissance Dam project. Their insistence on the difficulties of electricity production in Ethiopia is now considered pure propaganda.
The start of wind turbines, regardless of the amount of electricity actually produced, is described by analysts as a moral victory for Addis Ababa, both over Cairo and Khartoum and an illustration of the failure of the approach of the two countries in the conflict for more than ten years.
Generating electricity without reaching a tripartite agreement makes the dam a fait accompli. The third phase, that of the complete filling of the reservoir of the dam, next July and August, should not encounter major obstacles from Egypt and Sudan.
Observers say the only option left to Egypt and Sudan now is to accept minimal agreements with Ethiopia.
Training effects
Nevertheless, the power generation announcement is expected to have inevitable repercussions for Egypt, where the official narrative has always stressed that no country will be allowed to transgress Egypt’s national security red lines.
Egypt has no choice at this stage but to ask the African Union to quickly resume stalled negotiations as the only way out of the protracted crisis.
The electricity generation process can put Cairo in a very difficult position at home and in the region. Describing the Ethiopian decision as having no negative effect on Egypt’s interests will show that Cairo has so far adopted an unrealistic and populist rhetoric. Now he must face the fact that it is too late to dismiss Addis Ababa’s actions or hint at the use of hard power to resolve the dispute.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is set to be Africa’s biggest hydroelectric project, but it has been at the center of a regional dispute since work began in 2011.
Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia’s downstream neighbors, see it as a threat due to their dependence on the waters of the Nile, while Addis Ababa considers it essential for its electrification and development.
The $4.2 billion project is expected to ultimately produce more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity, more than doubling Ethiopia’s power generation.
State media reported that the dam began producing 375 megawatts of power from one of its turbines on Sunday.
The 145 meter high dam sits on the Blue Nile in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of western Ethiopia, not far from the border with Sudan.
Egypt, which depends on the Nile for around 97% of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat.
Sudan hopes the project will regulate the annual floods, but fears its own dams could be damaged without an agreement on how the GERD will operate.
The two countries have lobbied Ethiopia for a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the huge dam, but talks under the auspices of the African Union (AU) failed to yield a breakthrough.
Among those present at Sunday’s ceremony were First Lady Zinash Tayachew, heads of the lower house of parliament and the Supreme Court, regional presidents and government ministers.
The process of filling the vast GERD reservoir began in 2020, with Ethiopia announcing in July of the same year that it had reached its target of 4.9 billion cubic meters.
The total capacity of the reservoir is 74 billion cubic meters and the goal for 2021 was to add 13.5 billion.
Last July, Ethiopia said it had met that target, meaning there was enough water to start generating power, although some experts have questioned those claims.
