EMBRACING MIXED SOURCE OF ENERGY

In line with large-scale public projects featuring prominently in the economic activities of the country, senior officials of the Ethiopian government headed to the northernmost part of the country to inaugurate yet another megaproject. Located 18km from Mekelle, the capital of Tigray regional state, Ashegoda Wind Farm – dubbed the largest wind farm in Africa – has a capacity of 120MW and will produce about 400 million kwh a year. The Ashegoda project includes construction of access and maintenance roads for future operations and a new substation that interfaces with the Ethiopian Electric & Power Corporation (EEPCo)’s power grid system. Flanked by Debretsion Gebremichael (PhD), minister of Information and Technology, left, and Alemayehu Tegenu, minister of Water and Energy, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn looked determined on Saturday, October 26, 2013, as he headed out of the power station after the official inauguration, while listening intently to Alemayehu.

Senior government officials and the Prime Minister visited the wind farm that was completed in 36 months over several phases. All units have now been constructed and are already providing energy to the national grid.

 The project was the first of its kind in Ethiopia when launched in October 2009, but two smaller wind farms in Oromia, Adama I and II – with a capacity of 51MW each – have been inaugurated in October 2011 and 2012. They too are part of the government’s plan to generate up to 890MW of wind energy by the end of the Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) period.

Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.