Despite many efforts made by different multilateral organizations, Africa still suffers from acute energy crises, an official of the African Union (AU) said.

Speaking at a regional conference opened here in Addis Ababa this morning (March 31, 2011) focusing on hydroelectric, Elham Ibrahim (PhD), AU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy noted that even though the continent has been in acute energy crises, it has not been able to develop more than seven percent of its hydroelectric potential.

“In spite of the efforts made by the African Union Commission (AUC), African Development Bank, regional communities, power pools, river basin organizations and the development partners to develop hydropower projects, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are still faced with acute energy crises,” the commissioner said.

“Only a small portion of the available hydropower potential estimated at seven percent has been developed to date,” she said, indicating that the situation has compelled the AUC to launch ‘Hydropower 2020 Initiative’ in 2009.

“For the implementation of this initiative, the AUC is committed to support and promote the exploitation and development of the vast hydroelectric potential of the major river basins in Africa. It also planned interconnection of high voltage power transmission networks between 2010 and 2020, to ensure African people’s access to reliable and affordable electrical energy,” the commissioner noted.

Shared by the Africa-European Union (EU) Renewable Energy Cooperation Program, AUC aims to add a capacity of 10,000 mega watts of hydroelectric power facilities to the continent by 2020, according to Dr. Elham.

According to Abdoulie Janneh, Excutive Secretary of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa United Nations Under-Secretary General, who also made a remark at the conference, frequent power outrages in Africa, cost the continent at least one to two percent of its GDP. Referring to a study conducted by the World Bank, Janneh indicated that to get rid of the current crises, Africa needs to invest 37.2 billion US dollars annually on power sector.

Alemayehu Tegenu, Ethiopia’s Minister of Water and Energy, on his part stated that very severe lack of energy is hampering economic, social and health development in Africa. Describing that now there are some two and half billion people in the world with no access to electricity, the minister mentioned the paradox of some countries in Africa such as Democratic Republic of Congo being hit by energy crises, while the country has a huge potential of generating more than 100,000 mega watts of hydroelectric power.

“My government is fully committed to improve to improve this situation with a program to add up to 8,000 mega watts of electricity within the next five years,” Alemayehu said before inviting his country’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to address the conference.

Stating his country’s potential of generating 45,000 mega watts of electricity from hydropower next to DRC, Meles stressed his government’s commitment to exploit the potential.

“Our government had decided to exploit Ethiopia’s abundant resources to generate electricity from renewable sources not only to relieve the acute shortage of electric power that we currently face in our country, but also to export power to neighboring countries which are less endowed in renewable sources of energy,” the premier said.

Speaking about the impact of Ethiopia’s hydroelectric projects, Meles said: “Most of the dams in our country have to be built on cross-boundary rivers particularly the Nile. “We have therefore been guided by the principle of doing no appreciable harm to downstream users when we build the dams. In any case, hydropower dams use water to generate electricity but do not consume it. Hence they cannot possibly do appreciable harm on downstream users,” noted Meles in his speech that described international organizations that oppose dam construction of Ethiopia as ‘hydropower extremists’ and criticized some Egyptian politicians for their poison on the Nile River issue.

“…While Ethiopia is very grateful to all our partners for their support of our hydropower projects so far and hopes that this will continue in the future, it will never stop its program because of lack of external support,” Meles declares.

“We are so convinced of the justice of our causes, so sure of the strength and rationality of our arguments, so convinced of the role of our hydropower projects in eliminating poverty in our country that we will use every ounce of our strength, every dime of money that we can save to complete our program,” he said.

 Newbusiness Ethiopia