Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Friday announced the successful completion of the third phase of water filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam despite objections from Egypt and Sudan.
The 3rd phase filling has been carried out following the start of Ethiopia’s traditional rainy season, and now the water has started gracefully flowing over the top of the dam.
This news came a day after the official inauguration of GERD’s 2nd turbine electric power generation.
“Today as you can see behind me, the water is over-flowing on the dam,” said Ahmed noting that the dam will have 70 islands upon completion.
According to the Prime Minster, the dam will create an enabling situation to facilitate intergradations among neighboring countries as Ethiopia starts selling power to them from the mega dam.
Highlighting Abay River (Blue Nile) is a gift for Ethiopia, Sudan and Ethiopia, the prime minister called for wise utilization of the resource, cooperation and unity among the three countries to the best benefit of their people and other neighboring nations.
The construction of the 6,500-MW hydroelectric dam, which will be regarded as Africa’s largest dam upon completion with a total volume of 74,000 billion cubic meters, started in April 2011 on the Blue Nile river in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State in proximity to the Ethiopia-Sudan border.
When the dam starts generating power at full capacity, each turbine will generate 375 megawatts of power.
The dam covers an area of 1,680 square kilometers, holds 74 billion cubic meters of water, and 145 meters high and 1.8 kilometers long.
MG/abj/APA