Third-Phase GERD Filling Wraps Up

Aug 13 , 2022


The third phase of filling the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) wrapped up last week. The reservoir has thus far stored 22 billion cubic metres of water, less than a third of its total capacity of 74 billion cubic metres. Two of the Dam's 13 turbines are operational, generating 540mw of power. When the Dam begins operating at full capacity, each turbine will generate 375 megawatts of power. The dam first began generating electricity in February this year. A decade ago, the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi launched the construction of Africa’s largest dam in the village of Guba, some 20Km from the Sudanese border. Ethiopia's power generating capacity remains at 4,300mw, 90pc of which comes from hydropower dams located on nine of its major rivers.


Radar

CHERRY PICKING

Women around the Koshe area hunt through piles of trash to find scraps of metal to sell. With close to three million people unemployed in the country and a headline inflation of 33pc, unskilled labour is in little demand. Ethiopia has an adult literacy rate of 51pc, with fewer numbers going past high school. Less than three percent of 12th-grade students made it to universities this year while the rest were at the mercy of remedial exams...


Radar

JUNGLE CREW

An old wooden car that was part of a commercial campaign by a furniture company around the Beherawi Theatre area. Ethiopia's forest coverage to national land size has been registered at 15pc to the latest data by the World Bank. The current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched an initiative labelled 'Green Legacy' to plant five billion trees in 2020 claiming an 83pc success...


Radar

OVER CAPACITY

A young boy attempts to pull a piece of cloth from an overloaded pickup truck around the Ayer Tena area. Observing an unsupervised child on the streets of the capital has become a common sight, with sporadic conflict across the country creating nearly four million internally displaced people. Despite the last census having been conducted 16 years ago, the population of the country is estimated at 120 million...