AFP
Ethiopia said it has begun exporting electricity to Kenya under a 25-year deal between the two East African neighbours.
The move comes after Ethiopia earlier this year announced it had started generating power from its controversial mega-dam project on the Nile.
Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) said the $500 million transmission line between the two countries has a capacity to deliver 2,000 megawatts and generate up to $100 million a year.
“It’s a pivotal project geared towards transforming the multifaceted Ethio-Kenyan diplomatic relations,” Ethiopia’s ambassador to Kenya Bacha Debele said on Twitter on Friday.
Kenya’s Energy Petroleum and Regulatory Authority (EPRA) confirmed it began importing power from Ethiopia on Thursday.
“After the commissioning, our initial imports will be 150 megawatts then will upscale to 300 megawatts in the next three years,” EPRA director general Daniel Kiptoo was quoted as saying by local media.
Kenya has a 25-year deal to buy electricity from its northern neighbour, and Kiptoo said the cost of importing was lower than the country’s average generation cost.
Ethiopia first began generating power from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in February, and in August it announced a second turbine had begun producing electricity.
The $4.2 billion project, which has angered downstream neighbours Sudan and Egypt, is ultimately expected to generate more than 5,000 megawatts, more than doubling Ethiopia’s current output.
Ethiopia is already selling electricity to Sudan and Djibouti and has signed memorandums of understanding with South Sudan, Tanzania and the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, EEP said.
This is excellent news but to me nothing is new. On the other side those two countries, Ethiopia and Sudan, have been living side by side in the same hood for millennia. Their history has been a history of rivalry between two brothers. Let’s just look at the facts on the ground. It is estimated that there are a million or more Ethiopians living in Sudan not as refugees but aliens with legal status working and hustling like any other Sudanese. There are also more than 30 million Sudanese who are being fed, clothed and provided with electricity by the Ethiopia’s own The Blue Nile. A dumbest leader would not want to damage this reality even the door knob Mengistu wouldn’t touch it with a 14ft pole. On another front the power transmission line to Kenya has officially delivering electricity to our twin brothers and sisters there for the first time in their lives. Tanzania is next and off it goes all the way to South Africa. I need such uplifting and assuring stories to get back to these doomsday wishing bigots among us with all their panhandled PhD’s in all. Eat your hearts out with this!!!
The current transmission line to Kenya has a 500KV capacity with which it can provide up to 2,000 mega watts. Here in the West 1 mega watt can power close to 800 homes. More than 1.5 million households(by Western standards but in Africa that can be at least ten times of that) will get electricity for the first time in their lives in Kenya, Tanzania all the way the Cape of Good Home. Oo-wee!!! This is enough to add 10 years to my blessed life on this Good Earth. Ray, hit me with this!!!
Ethiopia! You know, God done shed his grace on thee
He crowned thy good, yes he did, in brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
I love you, hon.
Okay bigots! Not even one word out of you on this one! Not even one!!!