Ministry announces 91% completion of Genale Dawa III power project

Addis Ababa, February 21, 2017 (FBC) – The Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity announced 91 percent completion of Genale Dawa III hydropower project.

The project, being built on Genale River at a cost of 451 million US dollars, will raise Ethiopia’s total electricity installed generation capacity to 4, 541MW from 4,260 MW now, once completed.

Dr. Engineer Sileshi Bekele, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Electricity visited the progress of the project recently.

“The project has reached at 91 percent completion status. Electrical and mechanical works which allow the dam to generate power are progressing well,” said the Minister during the visit.

According to Dr. Engineer Sileshi, the power dam will soon start to retain water.

The construction of spillway, powerhouse, 12.4 km tunnel and other related works have been completed, said Belachew Kassa, deputy manager at the project.

According to Belachew, the project is using tunnel boring machines purchased at a cost of 43.5 million US dollars to drill tunnels instead of using explosives.

Launched six years ago, the 110 meter high and 426 meter long Genale Dawa III hydropower dam has the capacity to hold 2.57 billion cubic meter of water and generate 254MW.

Ethiopia has the potential to generate 50,000MW from hydropower, 1.3 million MW from wind and more than 10,000MW from geothermal energy.