By: Sintayehu Tamirat
Ethiopia has revealed huge ambition to interconnect three continents through clean energy supply, convinced that national prosperity cannot be realized in isolation to other African states.
That is according to Ethiopian State Minister of Water and Energy, Sultan Wali (PhD).
The state minister’s remarks in fact aligns with the East African Power Pool (EAPP) vision of enhancing regional power trade and increase access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity.
For too long, Eastern Africa, a region with vast untapped energy resources, including hydro, geothermal, wind, and solar power, which could be harnessed to support economic growth and development, has encountered significant challenges like political instability, weak governance, inadequate regulatory frameworks, and insufficient financing, as well as low investment attraction.
In this regard, Ethiopia has made a notable stride by exporting clean electric power to three countries in the region.
“It’s the firm stance of Ethiopian people and government that prosperity can be realized together with other African nations. That’s why we have interconnected power with Djibouti and supplying power at the least cost for 10 years. Likewise we have been exporting power to Sudan for about 8 years and to Kenya for nearly three years,” State Minister Sulatan said.
The state minister exclusively told EBC World that Ethiopia, who has been supplying electric power to Djibouti, Sudan and Kenya for over a decade has now planned to add to the power export list Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa, with Tanzania to connect sooner.
“We’ve already been interconnected to Tanzania. We are planning of course to interconnect Tanzania to Zambia and ultimately to Zambia. Therefore we have here very huge ambition here,” he disclosed.
Ethiopia’s vision however cannot be realized without the involvement of development partners and the private sector, according to the state minister. “This requires the private sector engagement as well; government alone cannot undertake the whole. The development partners have taken a great measure with regard to pledging the amount they can support.”
Ethiopia’s ambition of interconnecting power is not only limited in the continent, but also will interconnect three continents, he indicated. “We have already interconnected with Sudan and we need to do so with Egypt, Egypt with Jordan and Jordan with Europe.”
State Minister Sultan further said it’ll be possible to stabilize the Horn of Africa region through power interconnection.
“Our interest here is also to stabilize the region. As you know, the Horn of Africa, for obvious reasons, is very fragile region. And we believe if we provide power to the region at the least possible cost, we can of course grow together; maintain peace and stability together; and strengthen cultural and economic ties as well.”
Government report indicated that Ethiopia made over USD100 million a year from clean energy export.
