The wind blows hard over Adama, a range of rocky hills in Ethiopia’s highlands that provide the perfect location for one of the continent’s largest wind farms.
“In February, during the dry season, it is even difficult to stand here,” said Solomon Yismaw, the engineer in charge of 102 Chinese-built turbines each rising 70m into the sky, lining the horizon.
The Adama wind farm opened last month, its 153 megawatt (MW) capacity making it the largest wind farm in sub-Saharan Africa and the latest of three giant Ethiopian wind farms.
Photo: AFP
The hills here, 100km southeast of the capital, Addis Ababa, are 2km high.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Farmers using simple ox carts to plow the soil around the bases of the wind turbines offer a striking contrast between rural lives, little changed for centuries, and the central government’s ambition to develop a modern, climate-resilient economy.
Without its own reserves of either gas or oil, Ethiopia is turning to its significant renewable energy potential to fuel its rapid economic development — including damming the vast Blue Nile, with turbines there providing more than 90 percent of the country’s electricity production, and the southern Omo River.
However, the flow of rivers is subject to rainfall that is erratic in Ethiopia.
“We have an abundance of hydroelectric energy sources, but during the dry season and when droughts happen, the level of the dam decreases,” said Solomon, who pointed out that the wind turbines were immune to the dry spells.
“At that time the wind will complement the dam. The wind is especially strong during dry season, so wind and hydro complement each other,” Solomon said.
Ethiopia’s energy needs are huge. More than 75 percent of Ethiopia’s 94 million people, mainly those living in rural areas, are not connected to the national grid, and the country needs to increase its electricity production by 20 percent to 25 percent per year to meet rising demand, according to figures from the country’s energy ministry.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS
Ethiopia has set a target of slashing its carbon emissions by two-thirds within the next 15 years, the most ambitious national goal yet presented to an upcoming UN climate change conference in Paris later this year.
Ethiopia said it plans to cut emissions by adopting cleaner practices in agriculture, construction and transport, as well as slowing deforestation. While work continues on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile — the largest in Africa — Ethiopia is working to boost other green power projects, harnessing geothermal, solar and wind energy.
“Wind farms are fast track projects, we can construct them within a short time,” University of Adama professor and consultant engineer Tahaguas Andemariam said.
“Within 24 months we have constructed this big wind farm of 153MW — hydro would have taken much longer,” he said.
The 6,000MW that the Renaissance Dam is expected to generate will dwarf the output of the Adama wind farm, but the construction of the facility, which began in 2011, is not slated to finish until 2017.
Yet, the Adama wind farm can still power about 10 million efficient light bulbs. Another wind farm, even larger in size and intended to produce 300MW, is due to be constructed at Ayesha in the remote eastern desert near the border with Djibouti, another area with strong winds.
“We now have the knowledge to develop the roadmap of this wind technology in Ethiopia,” said Tahaguas, who spent a month in China working with other engineers to learn more about the turbines.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS