Ethiopia unveils 3 new hydropower projects on Nile, stoking concerns in Cairo

Blue Nile Cascade project: An ‘East African energy hub’ or a catalyst for ‘direct confrontation’ on the Nile Fulfilling a decades-long plan to transform Ethiopia into a regional hydropower hub, the country’s Water and Energy Ministry announced this week it has initiated plans to build three new dams on the Blue Nile. The announcement comes as Egyptian-Ethiopian relations are at their lowest after negotiations over the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam failed to produce a technical transnational water management agreement that safeguards the interests of downstream riparian countries Sudan and Egypt. Egyptian officials told Mada Masr that Cairo is worried the new dams will further undermine Egypt’s historic water share. Though not a new idea , the specific steps of the first phase details of the Blue Nile Cascade project were announced during the ministry’s annual Water, Hydro-Diplomacy, and Communication Conference, attended by officials from various African countries. The Ethiopian government has already invited international firms to bid on the project and establish the three dams with a seven-year completion target, requiring a US$10.5 billion investment, Water and Energy Minister Habtamu Itefa said in the conference. The three dams, to be constructed upstream of the GERD, are meant to work in tandem to boost Ethiopia’s power supply by 25 percent and are part of Ethiopia’s Energy Master Plan, which outlines the country’s policy to achieve universal electricity access by 2030 and transform the nation into a regional energy hub. According to the ministry’s presentation, the three dams are planned as follows: The Karadobi Dam: located roughly 70 km upstream from the Renaissance Bridge and straddling the border of the Amhara and Oromia regions, it is set to be a roller compacted concrete (RCC) structure with an installed capacity of 1,600 MW and a reservoir capacity of 32.5 billion cubic meters. Beyond power, its primary role will be “basin regulation” by capturing the heavy silt that flows from the Ethiopian highlands, acting as a sediment trap to prevent the GERD’s turbines from clogging, effectively extending the latter’s lifespan. The Mandaya Dam: planned as a 2,000 MW powerhouse with an annual output exceeding 12,000 GWh, it features an RCC gravity dam design standing approximately 200 meters high. It is set to be located 20 km downstream from the confluence of the Blue Nile and the Didessa River, the former’s largest tributary. This will be mainly positioned to provide stable, year-round power supply, reducing the impact of seasonal water fluctuations. Beko Abo Dam: planned to be roughly 2 km upstream of the Nekemte Bridge, which is 350 km from the GERD, this dam is set to be one of the highest dams in the world at 285 meters, with an installed capacity of 2,100 MW. It is meant to utilize the narrowest and deepest parts of the Blue Nile gorge to maximize water head pressure and is slated to be the most efficient power producer in the cascade. The combined 5,700 MW from these three dams are expected to boost Ethiopia’s national power supply and fulfill the country’s 2030 plan, which aims to make Ethiopia the “Power Bank of Africa,” providing the cheap, renewable energy for manufacturing and large-scale irrigation, while exporting the surplus to Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti and even South Sudan, according to the ministry. Speaking at the conference, the communications director of Ethiopian Electric Power, the state-owned electricity producer, Moges Mokonnen announced that Ethiopia generated more than $118.1 million in revenues from electric power exports to neighboring countries last fiscal year. Chair of the GERD negotiation team’s technical committee Gedion Asfaw noted that the new project signals “that Ethiopia has moved beyond preliminary development to total basin management,” arguing that the projects could solidify a permanent power dynamics shift in the Horn of Africa. The new announcement comes as the relationship between Addis Ababa and Cairo has reached its most precarious point in a century. The tensions that have plagued repeated rounds of failed negotiations have been compounded by more recent regional antagonism between the two nations. Today, Egypt and Ethiopia are on opposite sides of the war in Sudan, with Ethiopia allowing the Rapid Support Forces and its allies to use its territories to launch attacks in Sudan, while Egypt supports the Sudanese Armed Forces. While many Nile Basin countries have long wanted to overturn what they see as colonial era resource management agreements, construction of the dam on the Nile became a reality when Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia signed a trilateral “declaration of principles” in 2015, serving as Cairo’s recognition of Addis Ababa’s right to build the dam, with the aim of reaching a deal that serves the development interests of all three countries. But negotiations came to repeated deadlocks as Egypt — which gets 80 percent of its annual supply of water from the Blue Nile, on which GERD is built — demanded that the dam filling period be extended to seven years to mitigate the impact on its water share, while Ethiopia pushed forward with a three-year filling plan. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that Ethiopia had completed the filling of the dam’s 74 billion cubic meter reservoir in September 2023. A technical agreement on the dam’s management remains outstanding. An Egyptian official who spoke to Mada Masr on the condition of anonymity said that Cairo expects Addis Ababa to start working on the three dams soon and is looking to coordinate with neighboring countries to counter that move. Abiy has stated that Ethiopia respects the sovereignty of neighboring countries. Ethiopia doesn’t harm their interests with regards to Nile water but will continue to utilize water resources due to population growth and development needs, he said. During the conference, Habtamu also stressed that Ethiopia will “strengthen its involvement in the use of transboundary rivers and hydropower development.” On the sidelines of the conference, long-time GERD negotiator and political scientist Yacob Arsano told a  press pool that while “Ethiopia uses forums to identify regional development issues and strengthen partnerships, Egypt has responded by bolstering military ties with neighbors like Somalia.” But Cairo is also wary of how regional politics and hydropolitics are interrelated on the Ethiopian side. Another Egyptian official told Mada Masr on the condition of anonymity that Egypt is dismayed with the United Arab Emirates because of Cairo’s perception of its involvement, along with Israel’s, in the Ethiopian plans to establish more dams. Though the plans are not new, the source said that Egypt is troubled by the feeling that the UAE is using this scheme to put pressure on Egypt vis-à-vis its support for the Sudanese military in its war against the RSF. Speaking to reporters, Yacob argued that the Blue Nile Cascade dam project could serve as a regional fulcrum that could either become a shared energy hub for East Africa or “it could solidify a regional encirclement strategy that could risk escalating from a diplomatic standoff into a direct confrontation over the world’s longest river.” The post Ethiopia unveils 3 new hydropower projects on Nile, stoking concerns in Cairo first appeared on Mada Masr .