Ethiopia currently generates 2,300 MW of electricity.
The Ethiopian government said on Wednesday that it would generate 37,000 megawatts by 2037, making it a major regional energy exporter in the Horn of Africa.
Mihret Debeb, the Chief Executive of the Ethiopian Electric and Power Corporation (EEPCo), told journalists in Addis Ababa that the new power policy would enable the country to generate 37,000 megawatts by 2037.
Ethiopia currently generates 2,300 megawatts, which experts say is not enough to meet the electricity demand in the country’s industrial sector.
The government recently announced plans to liberalise its power sector to attract Direct Foreign Investments and meet the demand of electricity of the country and its neighbouring states.
Mr. Debeb said the strategy would boost power generation and meet the country’s projected target.
He said prominent Ethiopians and foreign experts had begun consultations to ensure effective implementation of the Addis Ababa 25-year Power Plan.
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According to the country’s five-year growth and transformation plan inaugurated in 2010, Ethiopia is targeting 10,000 megawatts, which will help in sustaining its annual economic growth to reach 15 per cent by 2015.
The EEPCo boss said that under the new plan, Ethiopia would export about 4,000 megawatts of hydro-power to nine countries in the East African region.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Ethiopian energy industry show that Ethiopia exports 60 megawatts to neighbouring Djibouti and about 100 megawatts to the republic of Sudan.
Ethiopia is currently constructing a dam that will generate 6000 hydro-electricity at the cost of $4 billion dollars along the Nile River being shared by Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.
The project, currently at 34 per cent, is expected to be completed by 2017.
An American-Icelandic company, Reykjavik, is also investing four billion dollars to generate 1000 megawatts of geothermal energy for the country in the next eight years.
Also, Ethiopia had inaugurated 290 million dollars Wind Farm, established by a French firm Vergnet SA, with concessional loans from BNP Paribas and the French Development Agency (AFD) in October.
The wind plant is expected to generate 120 megawatts, to be expanded to about 900 megawatts in 2015.
(NAN)
