Ethiopia plans to harness 5,000 MW of geothermal energy

Posted on :Friday , 25th November 2016

Ministry of Mines, Petrol and Natural Gas has made public Ethiopia’s plan to harness 5,000 Mega Watts (MW) of geothermal energy by 2037.

The newly appointed Minister of the mnistry, Motuma Mekassa, said that Ethiopia is intensively working to developing renewable energy sources like geothermal energy and expand its partnership with other African countries while addressing the opening of the 6th African Rift Geothermal Conference undergoing here in Addis Ababa today.

According to Motuma, Ethiopia has identified 22 geothermal prospective sites so far. He said that the country has already started developing Aluto- Langano and Tendaho geothermal fields.

It was noted that the two sites respectively will generate 70MW and 100MW of energy by the time become fully operational.

It was also noted that UNEP and ARGeo program has successfully completed an integrated geo-scientific study of Tendaho (Dubti-Ayrobera).

Motuma underscored that Ethiopia is highly interested to work cooperatively with other African countries in order to integrate through regional infrastructure networking, building, policy advice and win-win- relations as a whole.

Lack of Finance and well trained human power in science and technology are mentioned as the twin challenges that have been hunting the African continent in its bid to harness more energy sources to meet the continent goals in this regard, it was noted.

Though Eritrea was chosen to host the 6th African Rift Geothermal Conference, the country refuses to do so due to internal and external problems. As a resul of that Ethiopia has got the chance to host the conference for the second time this time following its previous role as a host country 2006.

According to researches, out of the total population of the world which current stands at around 7.5 billion people over 1.1 billion of them have no access to electricity. Almost one fourth of the African people have no access to electricity.

According to the same sources, Ethiopia has managed to increase its electric generation capacity fivefold from where it was in 2011 at the moment.

Ethiopia has a potential to produce 45,000 MW from hydropower, 1350GW from wind, 7,000 MW from geothermal, and 5KWh/day from solar energy.

The 6th African Rift Geothermal Conference which is underway with theme ‘Geothermal Energy Solution for Africa’s Energy Needs’ will continue till the 6th November, 2016 at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference Center (UNCC) here in Addis Ababa.

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