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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Sustainability challenges of hydropower and its implication on Ethiopia’s economy
Asfafaw H. Tesfay
a,b,c
, Mulualem G. Gebreslassie
a,d
and Leif Lia
a
a
Civil and Environmental Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway;
b
Thermal and Energy Systems chair,
School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ethiopian Institute of Technology-Mekelle, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia;
c
Institue of
Energy, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia;
d
Center of Energy, Ethiopian Institute of Technology-Mekelle, Mekelle University, Mekelle,
Tigray, Ethiopia
ABSTRACT
Ethiopia has the potential to be 100% renewable. Its renewables are capable to solve its energy poverty
and energy shortage in East Africa. The country’s climate resilient green economy strategy considers
energy as key enabler for vibrant economy. The objective of this paper is to identify key challenges of the
energy sector by studying 12 years of electricity generation data, 2012 to 2023, and to analyze the sector’s
performance with a special emphasis on hydropower. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative
methods were employed to draw performances indicators. The quantitative results showed that the
country achieved 30% of its energy development plan with a deteriorating performance from 94% to
40%. This performance works for hydropower too, which dominants the electricity development and
supply. The declining performance comes from government’s monopoly in the sector, nancial decit
due to ongoing internal crises and technical unavailability of power plants. This performance has greatly
inuenced expansion of industries, access to electricity, unemployment, and other economic activities.
The authors advise the government, stakeholders, and development partners to consider the recom-
mendations given in this paper to boost the energy sector development and keep the country in healthy
economic pace by all measures.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 30 October 2023
Accepted 9 February 2024
KEYWORDS
Energy development;
hydropower performance;
wind energy development;
environmental impact of
hydropower; renewable
energy mix; UN SDG
1. Introduction
The growing population and economy of Ethiopia, escorted by an
influx of local and foreign investments, has substantially increased
the demand for dependable electricity supply. The government
devised and implemented different energy policies that promote
energy accessibility. The climate resilient green economy (CRGE)
strategy is one of the grand strategies that aspire to transform the
country from low income country to middle-income country by
2025. This strategy mainly accentuated on development of diver-
sified energy mix, improved energy efficiency and increased off
grid electrification as means to grow the countries macro and
micro-economy (FDRE 2011). Subsequently, it has implemented
cascaded plans such as the first growth and transformation plan
(GTP I) (FDRE 2011), second growth and transformation plan
(GTP II) (FDRE 2016) and national electrification program
(MoWIE 2019). In addition, the launch of the united nations
sustainable development goals (UN SDG) added the govern-
ment’s leverage to implement these ambitious plans. The CRGE
strategy goes in agreement with the SDG-7 and SDG-13 target of
2030 (UN 2015).
Based on reports from Ethiopian electric power, the average
implementation performance of the energy plans, GTP I
(2011–2015) and GTP II (2016–2020), were 57% and 52%,
respectively. This has generally affected the planned antici-
pated economic growth, the energy sector’s 2025 plan to
become major power exporter in East Africa, and to generate
income from selling electricity to neighbouring countries. The
particular impact is observed in terms of limited expansion of
high-power consuming industries, reduced foreign direct
investment, increased youth unemployment, limited expan-
sion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which are key
drivers of economic growth. The national electrification pro-
gram (NEP 2) is the successor of GTP I and GTP II, that
aspired to achieve universal electricity access by 2025 through
65% grid and 35% off-grid energy systems expansion (MoWIE
2017, 2019). Given the diverse terrain and scattered settle-
ments of the country, promoting off-grid energy systems is
considered cost-effective. Despite all these ambitious plans and
efforts, the generation capacity of the country stands at 5.3 TW
by 2022 (EEP 2022a) with remarkable growth from 3.4 in 2018
to 15.2 in 2020 and 15.5 TWh in 2022 (National Bank of
Ethiopia 2020, 2022). This slower development pace of the
power sector is influencing the country’s economic and social
development including but not limited to education, health,
employment, entrepreneurship, investment and others not to
grow as planned (National Bank of Ethiopia 2018, 2020, 2022).
The planning, development and distribution of the power
sector in Ethiopia is owned by a state entity and it was con-
tinuously restructuring since its establishment in the 1960s.
Consequently, the council of ministers issued a regulation, No.
302/2013 and No. 381/2016, to restructure the Ethiopian elec-
tric power corporation (EEPCO) to Ethiopian electric power
(EEP) and Ethiopian electric utility (EEU). EEP is responsi-
ble to:
CONTACT Asfafaw H. Tesfay asfafaw.haileslassie@gmail.com Civil and Environmental Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Trondheim 7491, Norway
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING
2024, VOL. 17, NO. 1, 120–133
https://doi.org/10.1080/19397038.2024.2318780
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits
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posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
(i) Undertake feasibility studies, design and survey of
electricity generation in integrated national grid, con-
struction of transmission lines and substation over
66kV and outsource such activities as required;
(ii) Commence construction and upgrading power plants
that are integrated to the national grid, construction
and upgrading of transmission lines and substations
over 66kV, subcontract such works to third parties as
required;
(iii) Administer, operate and maintain electricity genera-
tion in the integrated national grid and transmission
lines and substation of over 66kV;
(iv) Sell and purchase bulk electric power on transmission
lines above 66kV;
(v) Lease transmission lines above 66kV;
(vi) Submit electricity tariff proposals with respect to
power sales and implement upon approval;
(vii) In line with directives and policy guidelines issued by
the ministry of finance and economic cooperation to
sell and pledge bonds and to negotiate and sing loan
agreements with locale and international finance
institutions; and
(viii) Engage any other related activities necessary for the
attainment of its purposes.
Currently, EEP manages 22 power plants out of which 16 are
hydropower plants with a generation capacity of 5 TW. High
voltage transmission lines and substations were developed
alongside power plant projects to transfer the generated
power to national grid and provide quality electricity
throughout the country. In that aspect, over 17,000 km of
high voltage transmission lines ranging from 132kV to
500kV and 163 substations ranging from 132kV to 500kV
were established (EEP 2022c). It is also mandated to provide
electricity to large industries and neighbouring countries
such as Djibouti and Sudan that use 132 kV and above. As
a result, it is generating an average income of $70 million
annually. Moreover, it aspires to play a vital role in the east
African power pool and beyond by developing bilateral rela-
tions with Somali Land, Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan
(EEP 2022b).
Similarly, the EEU is established by the regulation No. 303/
2013 (Ethiopian Electric Utility 2013) with the purpose to:
(i) Construct and maintain electric distribution networks,
contract out the distribution networks construction to
contractors as required,
(ii) Administer electric distribution networks, purchase
bulk electric power and sell electric energy to
customers;
(iii) Initiate electric tariff amendments and upon approval
to implement it
(iv) In line with directives and policy guidelines issued by
the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development,
to sell and pledge bonds and to negotiate and sign loan
agreements with local and international financial
sources, undertake any other related activities neces-
sary for the attainment of its purposes.
Despite the huge investment, Ethiopia’s energy sector pace is
slow to achieve national and international goals. It achieved
only 51% access to electricity and 8% access to clean cooking
with renewable energy makes up 89% of total final consump-
tion (I. E. A. IRENA, UNSD, and WHO 2022). Ethiopia still
has one of the lowest per capita energy supply and consump-
tion rates in the world (IEA 2019; I. E. A. IRENA, UNSD, and
WHO 2022). The country’s performance indicators high-
lighted the need for improvement in order to achieve the
expected targets. In addition, the tracking SDG 7 2022 report
raised concerns that Ethiopia might not reach its targets due to
lack of success in implementing national and international
plans (I. E. A. IRENA, UNSD, and WHO 2022; Helen
Mountford et al., 2021; Razzaq et al., 2023). On the other
hand, sustainability of electricity generation from developed
power plants show a frustrating trend as there is frequent
blackouts and shedding that is heavily influencing the
economy.
The main purpose of this study is to highlight the sustain-
ability challenges faced by Ethiopia’s power sector in general
and hydropower in particular by examining generation data
from 2011–2023 and site investigation in one of the power
plants. The study draws a full picture of the nature of actual
power generation against the expected plans through these
years and the corresponding economic impact of the country.
It also identified the key challenges of the sector and produced
recommendations to overcome these challenges in the future.
The results indicated the technical unavailability influence of
the energy sector on the economic growth, investment payback
and expansion. The findings show huge implications for policy
makers and other stakeholders where to focus in order to solve
the technical challenges of existing power plants while plan-
ning to expand. Moreover, this study will contribute to the
hardly published scientific work and motivate different
research and academic institutions, scholars to engage further
studies to improve the deteriorating performance of the energy
sector and its trade-off influences. The uniqueness of this
paper is its focus on the technical challenges of the energy
sector, which anchored the countries transformation journey.
However, it did not get attention to be considered as one of the
prime movers for health growth. In this perspective, the paper
will serve as a baseline for future works to deal with the
following gaps: first, there has not been any attention on
sustainability of power generation and its impact on the coun-
try’s macroand micro-economic growth. Second, the influence
of government’s monopoly on the sector and quality of service.
Third, main policy bottlenecks for private sectors to invest in
the energy sector and implication. Fourth, the trade-off
between sustainable availability of electricity and economic
transformation.
The paper is structured in six sections. Section 1 introduces
the general energy development activities in Ethiopia. Section
2 describes the study area and the methodology employed in
the study. Section 3 gives the overall picture of the power
generation capacity in Ethiopia. Section 4 discusses the chal-
lenges of Ethiopia’s power sector and main focus on hydro-
power. Section 5 provides actionable recommendations and
section 6 give concluding remarks.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING 121
2. Methodology
In this study, primary and secondary data were used for
analysis purpose. The primary data are actual electricity gen-
eration data collected from Ethiopian electric power. The
secondary data were collected from official reports and scien-
tific articles. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the col-
lected data together with field investigation methodology was
used to draw the actual electricity generation nature, perfor-
mance of the generation capacity, performance of hydropower
plants and its inference to social and economic development.
From the bigger picture of the energy sector status, various
policy recommendations were produced to improve energy
service and boost economic growth.
2.1. Description of the study area
Ethiopia locates in the north-eastern part of Africa commonly
called as the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Sudan in
the west, Somalia and Djibouti in the east, Eritrea in the north
and Kenya in the south. It covers a total area of about 1.13
million km
2
(Zelelew, Gebre, and Wasihun 2022). It imple-
mented CRGE strategy in 2011 and started to substitute its
conventional power plants with renewables. Table 1 presents
the renewable energy potential of the country, which can be
harnessed to develop the economy. Currently, the country has
the highest installed hydropower capacity in Africa (IHP 2022)
and the ninth top in the world in creating job opportunities in
hydropower (IRENA 2022).
3. Power generation
3.1. Total power generation in Ethiopia
Ethiopia is endowed with abundant renewable energy
resources, see Table 1, with a potential to generate over 60
GW of electric power from hydropower, wind, solar and
geothermal. This potential could give the country a good
opportunity and leverage to grow its economy and play vital
role to supply electricity to neighbouring countries. However,
taping all these resources demands huge capital investment
beyond the country’s capacity. Accordingly, the country
should revise its long-term planning to utilise and strengthen
its energy security, economy and stability. At the present, the
country faces big energy shortage and load shedding to serve
its about 126 million people (UNFPA 2023). This shortage is as
a result of low generation performance, planning, failure in
implementation scheme, lack of finance, conflict and other
factors.
The CRGE strategy fits to SDG-7 and SDG-13 and it shows
a significantly headway in many activities. Yet it fell far short of
what is expected to achieve. One reason to drag its full imple-
mentation is due to its capital intensiveness and a missed
promise from Paris agreement [COP26 2021]. On the other
hand, the intensive hydropower development in the country
raised environmental concerns that delay the development of
some hydropower projects. As a result, the country’s develop-
ment capacity is falling short of its ambitious energy plans
outlined in its GTP I and GTP II. This has challenged the
country’s macroeconomic growth, trade and investment
(National Bank of Ethiopia 2022). Because of this, The plan
to achieve 100% electrification is now in jeopardy (MoWIE
2019). Ethiopia’s electric power development was mainly
dependent on hydropower. The hydropower was known for
its significant power blackout and shedding due to lower
reservoir volume, especially in the dry season. Rarely published
researches show substantially reduce generating capacity of
many power plants during the dry season (Chen 2016). This
problem was addressed by implementing renewable energy
mix based on studies that shown the complement of wind
energy during the dry season (Embassy of Japan in Ethiopia
2008). Today, the small mix of wind energy shows significant
contribution into the overall generation capacity of the coun-
try since 2013 see Figure 1(a). The share is slowly increasing
and reached around 7% by 2023 as shown in Figure 1(b). This
share is expected to increase upon the completion of under-
going wind farm projects and execution of pipeline plans.
Figure 2 shows the country’s 12-year generation trend. It
clearly highlights how the energy sector is facing a new and
unrecognised challenge. Despite the highest volume of water in
the reservoirs during the rainy season, June to September, the
hydro-dominated generation trend is declining (Figure 2(a)).
This decline in generation capacity is not due to water short-
age, but availability challenges of the power plants. The power
plants are generating considerably less power far below their
optimal operating capacity. The performance declined rapidly
from 94% in 2012 to 40% in 2023. Due to this performance
deterioration and dependability challenges, many develop-
ment activities including expansion of industrial parks, job
creation and access to electricity was diminished. As a result,
several industrial parks with greater job creation potential are
forced to postpone their launch or operate under capacity that
in return exacerbated the growing unemployment rate in the
country.
3.2. Power generation from Hydro
Ethiopia’s power system expansion master plan forecasted,
energy requirements within Ethiopia and potential exports to
neighbouring countries. The forecast showed that the total
energy generation of 147TWh by the year 2037 (EEPCO
2013a, 2013b). This forecast considered an average of 13%
and 12.4% annual generation and power demand growth,
respectively. This forecast targeted to satisfy 22GW and 5GW
peak demand for Ethiopia and export correspondingly. It
further indicated that several hydropower plants would
Table 1. Ethiopia’s energy resource potential (Ethiopia - Energy 2023).
Resource Unit Exploitable potential Exploited %
Hydropower MW 45,000 <5%
Solar/day kWh/m
2
4–6 <1%
Wind: Power
Speed
GW
m/s
100
>7
<1%
Geothermal MW <10,000 <1%
Wood Million tons 1120 50%
Agricultural waste Million tons 15–20 30%
Natural Gas Billion m
3
113 0%
Coal Million tons 300 0%
Oil shale Million tons 253 0%
Only 45GW from hydropower, 5GW from solar, 5GW from wind and 5GW from
geothermal is consider in long term planning as generation capacity.
122 A. H. TESFAY ET AL.
develop in the coming 10 to 15 years as shown in Figure 3. It
also gives the clue for domination of hydropower in the elec-
tricity supply until 2037. In addition, it also indicated that the
share of wind, solar, geothermal and bioenergy will also
increase. The growing energy mix strategy would contribute
to assure increased access, stable and reliable energy system,
grow the economy.
Despite the increasing generation capacity, people con-
nected to the grid remained to suffer from undependable
electricity supply and people expecting to get electricity access
are forced to wait longer than the planned time. since recently,
the frequent power interruptions become common throughout
the year. Most of the time this happens without schedule and
notification spontaneously. Such unstable availability of power
caused serious damage to individual, institutional properties
and to the economy at large. For example, after every inter-
ruption reconnecting to the internet network is taking from
minutes, hours and even days. This challenge greatly influ-
ences financial institutions such as banks and micro enter-
prises and the service sector in general.
The power blackouts become serious when it happened as a
result of fluctuated generation due to technical unavailability
of units on top of overloaded transmission lines, transformers
and substations. The main cause for this is lack of proper
maintenance and operation, shortage of spare parts, ageing,
delayed management decisions, long and tedious procurement
system, inefficient centralised maintenance management sys-
tem and others.
The reduced generation performance during the rainy season
shown in Figure 2(a) is an indication to question if the investment
on wind power is right or not. Another indication for technical
unavailability, is the climate impact study of international energy
agency (IEA) on hydropower generation. It showed that
Ethiopia’s hydro powers would not experience shortage of water
Figure 1. Ethiopia’s power production trend: a) contribution of wind and b) utilized resource.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING 123
due to the slightly increase in rainfall (IEA 2020). The continu-
ously falling generation capacity observed in Figure 1, Figures 2
and 5, indicates the alarming unhealthy availability of power
plants that in return influences the electricity supply, developing
demand of electricity, transportation, industries productivity,
raising unemployment rate, inflation and so on. Similarly, the
wind power plants are also facing availability challenge. For
example, the 120 MW Ashegoda wind farm is found at its critical
stage to refunction. The long idle time of the farm would demand
significant finance for maintenance, spare parts and refurbish-
ment if not complete upgrading.
In 2022, Ethiopia ranked first in Africa by having highest
installed hydropower capacity (IHP 2022). The contribution of
hydropower in the country’s electricity generation capacity is
enormos as shown in Figure 4. Many of the hydro powers are
storage type with four run-of-the-river (Open Infra Map
2023). The dominance of hydropower will also continue in
the future; however, the low generation performance in gen-
eral and the performance of certain hydropower plants in
particular seeks attention for healthy availability and planning
alongside to expansion works. Expansion without proper plan-
ning for technical availability is a zero-sum game investment.
In addition, hydropower development has controversial envir-
onmental impact issues globally and studies show there is no
agreed positive or negative environmental impact of growing
hydroelectricity consumption (Adebayo, Kartal, and Ullah
2023). However, development of Ethiopia’s hydropower was
considered as a swift means to get dependable electricity,
strengthen the economy, substitute any imported fossil fuels
and take mitigation to any environmental impacts (Estifanos
2019). Nevertheless, the environmental impact and water pol-
itics issue has influenced the development of large hydro
powers of the country and requires good handling prior to
any development.
Figure 2. Ethiopia’s generation trend a) monthly and b) generation performance.
124 A. H. TESFAY ET AL.
3.3. Power generation from other energy sources
Ethiopia’s ambitious electricity development plan did not
only focus on hydropower and wind but it tried to mix all
possible sources of renewables including solar, geothermal
and bioenergy. EEP planned the developments of solar
power projects for Metehara (100 MW), Metema (125
MW), Mekelle (100 MW) and Humera (100 MW) through
public private partnership (PPP) and independent power
producer (IPP) scheme. The development of these projects
is delayed due to the peace and insecurity crisis in the
country. Since recently, the impact of COVID-19 and the
Tigray war in the north has left the country at high risk to
perform any developmental activities and growth as
before (Ayele et al. 2023a). However, in normal circum-
stances the contribution of such generation mixes would
expect to grow by type and capacity as the country’s
commitment to invest on geothermal, sugar industries
and waste to energy continues. In this view, the potential
of wind and solar integration by 2025 was estimated as
2GW and 3.44GW with a potential to increase into
3.6GW and 5.3GW by 2030 respectively (RES4Africa
2019). At this time, a very small contributions from
geothermal and waste to energy conversion were inte-
grated to the power mix. With continued implementation
Figure 3. Existing and planned hydroelectric developments in Ethiopia (EEPCO 2013b).
Figure 4. Ethiopia’s hydropower production behaviour.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING 125
of the CRGE strategy to decommission non-renewable
power plants, it would also open doors for increased
integration of the available renewables.
4. Challenges of the power sector
Ethiopia’s state-owned electricity sector underwent continu-
ous reform following electricity sector liberalisation experi-
ences of other countries. The reform targeted to reduce
public finance deficit due to huge investment on energy devel-
opment, enable the government to invest on other develop-
ment projects, diversify the generation capacity to withstand
drought and climate impacts and to satisfy a pressing need for
clean and affordable energy supply. Following the reform,
different policies and proclamations were exercised. These
policy reforms narrated today’s mixed generation capacity
and access targets (Girma 2020). Nevertheless, the delayed
development projects of wind and solar plans gave the energy
sector a bigtime to realise its energy mix targets. Table 2 shows
the execution performance of the country’s grand energy
development plans. The hydro-dominating generation capa-
city of the country need to address key challenges detailed in
the subsequent sections is essential for sustainable and respon-
sible development.
4.1. Technical challenges of the hydropower sector
This study examined six representative hydropower plants,
listed in Table 3, to explore the main technical issues for
their underperformance. These plants represent about 33% of
the entire hydropower plants in the country. Figure 5 (a and b)
indicates how the power plants are straggling with availability.
The below-average annual performance shown in Figure 5(b)
depicts the behaviour of the other power plants as well.
The individual generation details of the power plants
revealed their lower performance profile except for Finchaa
power plant. Finchaa is the oldest HP in the group and it was
refurbished in 2003 after 30 years of service. The power plant
performed better compared to the other five power plants. Its
10-year generation performance indicated that the power plant
has a good availability reputation. On the other hand, Tekeze
HP has experienced inconsistent availability that indicates the
actual poor maintenance practice.
4.2. Performance of Tekeze hydropower plant
Tekeze hydropower plant has four 75 MW turbines and it has
entered into commercial operation in 2009. It was jointly
operated for two years by the contractor, HARZA
Engineering Com. Intel., and the client, Ethiopian electric
light and power authority, EELPA. Later, it was handed over
to the client for full operation and maintenance. The power
plant contributed greatly in electricity supply significantly
from the date of its commencement. Its share when the coun-
try was in a critical power shortage was so incredible and it was
named as ‘Fetno Derash’ meaning a fast helper. However,
shortly its performance was deteriorated to highly stochastic
nature as shown in Figure 6. Since 2013, the power plant was
stressed by sever technical challenges. Client’s technical
reports show that the plant’s units (unit 2, 3 and 4) were
experiencing exceptional vibrations and they were forced to
stop in 2015. This technical status led the power plant not only
to be scheduled for extended maintenance but also proposed
for rehabilitation options. While the process for extended
maintenance and procurement of spare parts were under
way, a war crisis broke out in Tigray on 4 November 2020.
During the war period, the power plant was lounging and
giving service in its limited capacity in an off-grid modality
separated from the centralised national grid system. The gov-
ernment bombed the power plant’s substation by air and
drones amid to toughened the siege situation in Tigray. The
consecutive air and drone strike cause partially damaged to the
control room and completely damage to one of the transfor-
mers shown in Figure 7. During this very critical crisis
Table 2. Summary of Ethiopia’s GTP I &II energy development performance.
Activities
GTP I GTP II
Planned Achieved Performance Planned Achieved Performance
Generation [MW] 10,000 2,221 22% 17,346 4516 26%
HV transmission line [km] 17,174 12,825 75% 21,728 20,803 96%
MV Transmission line [km] 110,000 88,266 80% 120,699 64,000 53%
LV transmission line [km] 148,038 100,939 68% 175,240 62,690 36%
Electricity access % 61 53 87% 90 60 67%
number of customers connected [million] 1.97 0.22 11% 2.96 0.95 32%
Average Performance 57% Average Performance 52%
The implementation success of the country’s national electrification plan is highly dependent on this performance.
Table 3. Selected hydropower plants.
Power plant
Installed capacity
[MW]
minimum Energy
[GWh year]
Average Energy
[GWh/year]
Average plant
Factor
Investment
[$million]
Year of
commencement
Tana Beles 460 1357 2749 0.68 500 2010
Tekeze 300 782 1400 0.53 400 2009
Finchaa/refurbished 128 422 615 0.55 NF 1973/2003
Gibe I 210 610 882 0.48 331 2004
Gibe II 420 1400 2030 0.55 600 2010
Melka Wakena 153 325 556 0.42 NF 1988
Total 1671 4896 8232
126 A. H. TESFAY ET AL.
situation, the authors pay frequent visit to the power plant to
contribute technical support, troubleshooting, perform root
cause analysis and supervised ongoing maintenance activities.
The desk review and site investigation of the power plant
showed the power plant has experienced inflated maintenance
cost, acute shortage of spare parts, untimely worn-out of
components, visible and unavoidable units’ vibration, mal-
functioning of unit components and systems, especially mon-
itoring, communication and instrumentation that made
operation and management risky. On the other hand, the
power plant was used to spill water on scheduled timeframes
with prior preparation and awareness. At times the power
plant was connected to the national grid the impact of its
unavailability during spilling was not well recognised.
However, during the war time availability of the power plant
become a means of life and death for the people of Tigray.
Nevertheless, the power plant was forced to spill very large
amount of water during the summer of 2021 and 2022. The
amount of the spilled water was almost equivalent to its annual
water requirement for normal full capacity generation. The
Figure 5. Performance of selected hydropower power plants in Ethiopia (a) individual behaviour and (b) average performance.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING 127
spilling was performed to protect reservoirovertopping. The
level increment comes as a result of low performance nature of
the power plant, regular spilling communication was inter-
rupted due to the war situation and heavy rainy season in the
catchment.
During spilling, the flowing water was usually causing big
damage to agricultural properties of downstream farmers.
The extent of damage was expected to worsen during the
war period as spilling was made without any prior notifica-
tion to downstream communities due to communication
obstruction and siege. In addition, the power plant’s design
made it impossible to generate power while spilling. This
challenge became bold as the power plant became the only
power source to the people of Tigray who was under a
complete siege.
Throughout the spilling period, the power plant became
under 100% forced shutdown condition as power transforma-
tion cables and is powerhouse covered by a continuously
varying direction of water shower. The corona effect on the
transmission cables and highest water jet covering the trans-
formers in the partially opened transformer house, see
Figure 8, made generation impossible. The transmission cables
were not only under corona effect but experienced a lateral
turbulent water jet that skewed and disturbed their normal
insulation gap. In addition, the water jet approaching the
transformer house was leaking to the powerhouse that created
Figure 6. Monthly performance of Tekeze hydropower.
Figure 7. Tekeze transformer burned by drone.
128 A. H. TESFAY ET AL.
other challenges in the generation units. Moreover, the spilled
water caused higher erosion and sliding with high material
transport on the left abutment of the dam. This material
entered the draft tube forcefully through tailrace gates and
caked up. In addition, this would compromise the safety of
the arc dam greatly. The leaked water in the power house and
deposited material in the draft tube all the way to tail race
required additional working days to dry and clean the power
house to restart.
In Ethiopia, households consume about 85% of the total
supplied electricity. The households typically use more energy
during the day and less at night that made generation units to
operate at fluctuating and lower capacities than their optimal
generation capacity, especially at night. In addition, the load
demand profile of the neighbouring countries to which the
country sells electricity is similar.
Particularly, at Tekeze, it was observed that units were
generating very low power during night time that influ-
enced units to operate at extended cavitation zone that
produced higher vibration in the draft tube and in the
units in addition to the inherited vibrations. As part of
the investigation, shifting of all higher power demanding
activities such as milling, bakery, household intensive
cooking and all industrial duties to night time was prac-
ticed to narrow the day and night time demand gap. This
created some stability on the units to operate at their
lowest safe marginal generating capacity. In addition, it
was suggested direction change to the transmission line
and building appropriate shade to the transformers that
enable the power plant to operate while spilling. The later
recommendations would address the design short comings
of the power plant.
Normally, hydropower plant maintenance in Ethiopia is
handled centrally. This method has shown inefficient and slow
reputation. Moreover, it doesn’t develop local capacities such as
spare part manufacturers, industries to hand maintenance work,
skilled labour and it did not invest in academic and research to
assure sustainability. The industrial experience at Tekeze revealed
that there is local capacity, manufacturing, maintenance and
skilled labour, that can excel if opportunity is created. This also
highlighted the timely need for intervention of continuous
research and development, continued short and long-term capa-
city building, partnership development, spare part indigenisation
and public awareness in the sector.
Allowing Tekeze and the other power plants to continue
with their present performance trend will not only shorten
their lifespan but also lead to reduced and/or no investment
payback potential of the sector and economic disaster in the
country. Allowing this means giving assurance to worsen sedi-
ment accumulation, dead storage volume reduction and
reduced generation capacity than they are designed for. This
would affect the country’s economic growth, environmental
safety, power sector sustainability and others. In return, it
would directly influence the investment to expand the energy
sector and energy system. Indirectly, low energy investment
would lead to step back the access to affordable and clean
energy plans, limit industrial expansion, slow or halted the
country’s transformation journey that aspired to become mid-
dle income economy by 2025 or so.
4.3. Hydropower dominance and nancing challenges
Regardless of the beautiful energy mix planning, Ethiopia’s
electricity falls under hydropower full dominance with the
government remained as the sole actor in the sector’s
transformation. The multipurpose development potential
of hydropower will also enable it to continue as an impor-
tant key player in the water-energy-food and environment
nexus (A. D. Hailu 2022; Jima et al. 2022). However, the
project execution period of many developed and under-
going HP projects consumed extended project time, which
ended up at higher project cost than planned investment
margins. In addition to the prolonged project execution
period, the performance of the installed hydro power
plants exhibited lower performance that further prolong
the payback period of their investment. This investment
trend limits the financing capacity of the government to
expand the electricity sector and other development pro-
jects. Furthermore, added collateral damages attributable to
recent peace crises worsen the maintenance and investment
efficiency of the sector.
As Ethiopia aspires to become a middle-income country,
its big challenge was getting finance for its ambitious plans
including for building large hydropower projects as they
Figure 8. Power house and transmission cables of Tekeze hydropower a) during spilling and b) normal operation.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING 129
need multi-trillion financing. In addition, studies suggest the
government to consider environmental, geopolitical and
social factors for implementing long term plans (van der
Zwaan, Boccalon, and Dalla Longa 2018). The development
of the great Ethiopian renaissance dam (GERD) can be seen
as example how international donors and lenders were hesi-
tant to support its development. The country’s right to
develop GERD and unsettled diplomatic relation with down-
stream countries led to development of new policies in order
to avoid potential conflicts (Abebe et al. 2023; Tefera and
Sterk 2008; You 2023). The geopolitical issues and concerns
of international actors on the country’s interest to develop
large hydropower project was hindering the country’s ability
to utilise its resources and meet its increasing electricity
demands. In this condition, creating conducive environment
for accelerable execution of IPP and PPP is the way forward
to speed up the development of planned hydropower
projects.
4.4. Climate change, environmental and social impacts
Hydropower might cause negative environmental and social
impacts. Building big dams can force people to leave their
homes and harm the environment. It is tough to balance
these impacts while promoting sustainable development.
However, proper strategic planning to reduce land use
land cover impacts on the environment and local commu-
nity believed to improve this condition (Soressa and Gebre-
Egziabher 2023). Similarly, hydropower developments have
potential variabilities due to climate change that would
strongly influence water level, agricultural productivity and
energy generation. Studies indicate that Ethiopia would
have a slightly increase precipitation until the end of the
21
st
century (M. B. Hailu et al. 2023; IEA 2020).
Accordingly, climate change poses a threat drought and
flood on the country due to changes in rainfall patterns.
This could affect the hydropower by disrupting its water
flow, availability, sediment accumulation as well dam fail-
ures. In this regard, the country should conduct thorough
assessment, protection procedures and tabled approved
assessment reports of potential harm before starting new
hydropower development would normalise any cross-border
misunderstandings and climate change predictions. This
would also help the country to get support from global
development partners.
4.5. Local capacity
Looking at the available resources, history of development and
global contribution, hydropower in Ethiopia remained with
undeveloped local capacities. Specialized technical expertise
together with robust technological capacities are crucial for
proper development and operation of the sector. However,
Ethiopia faces critical skilled gap particularly in project plan-
ning, design, manufacturing, safety, management, mainte-
nance and operation to satisfy its striving HP development.
To fill this gap, the country highly relied on foreign capacities.
One factor that contributed to this challenge is the limited
knowledge and technology transfer strategy exercised during
project planning, development, execution and very poor skill
retention mechanism.
4.6. Regional and local conicts
Ethiopia shares river basins, including the Blue Nile basin, with
neighbouring countries. The question for equitable water share
has been raised when hydropower development was initiated. In
this regard, continued research on mutual economic and social
developments of shared water resources would be instrumental
to narrow misunderstanding, have effective negotiation and to
resolve potential conflict (Getahun, Wakjira, and Nyingi 2020;
Sallam 2014; Veilleux 2018). On the other hand, the extended
intensive civil wars, such as the Tigray war erupted in 2020,
recent crises in the Amhara and Oromia region, are diverting
government and stakeholders’ attention from development
engagements in general and hydropower development in parti-
cular. The impact of the Tigray war on Ethiopia’s economy is
very huge and it has diminished the countries capacity to
convene any development projects (Ayele et al. 2023b; UNDP
2021). Moreover, international investors and development part-
ners are also hesitant to support endeavours in conflict areas,
including development of HP in trans-international river
projects.
5. Actionable recommendations
5.1. Government-led intervention
Hydropower will continue as lead electricity supplier in
Ethiopia. To assure its sustainable development, the govern-
ment needs to create transparent policies and regulations
including but not limited to investment, licencing, environ-
mental protection and social impacts. Expansion of IPP and
PPP policies and proclamations would contribute to ensure
public interest protection to leverage expertise, capital and
technology for hydropower projects. In addition, the govern-
ment should focus to invest in the necessary infrastructures
such as roads and robust grid infrastructures to facilitate fast
development and integration of hydropower projects.
Moreover, government direction and efforts to create local
capacities in hydropower design, planning, operation, man-
agement, skill development, research and development strate-
gies would be paramount important.
5.2. Private sector intervention
The implementation of IPP and PPP policies and collaboration
between the government and private sector are very important
mechanisms for successful and sustainable hydropower devel-
opments. In this view, the government should incentivise
private investment through tax breaks, subsidies, finance
access mechanisms, guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms.
This will encourage the involvement of foreign and local
private sectors that have advanced technologies and innovative
solutions in the sector. In addition, it would be helpful to
promote partnerships with private companies that have the
expertise, advanced equipment and practices. Private sector
involvement would bring efficiency and innovation to project
130 A. H. TESFAY ET AL.
development, construction, quality of service, operation and
marketing in the sector. To successfully implement this, the
government should ensure the following: the participation of
experienced and qualified private developers through compe-
titive bidding and monitor for compliance with environmental
and social safeguards and compliance with global standards for
environmental and social impact evaluations, relocation pro-
cedures and community engagements.
5.3. Data availability
Generally, countries without robust systems have poor data
handling. However, Ethiopia’s data handling, openness and
availability represents one among the worst. Most important
data of the country are found in the hands of individuals not
in the system of institutions. This made it data collection is a
time taking and tedious process in the way it causes data
adulteration and greatly influence the credibility of many
plans. In addition, it becomes very difficult to deal with the
relation of one sector with others as this study is trying to
solve. Accordingly, the government should build centralised
data hubs which are open to research institutions, private
sectors and the public.
6. Policy consideration recommendations
To expand hydropower development in Ethiopia, the authors
propose the following policy considerations:
(a) Develop a comprehensive energy strategy that clearly
outlines goals, necessary steps, timeline, actors and
investments for increasing hydropower capacity.
(b) Create a transparent and efficient permitting process
to reduce delays in project approvals and encourage
private sector investment in new hydropower projects.
(c) Offer investment incentives, including tax breaks, sub-
sidies and financial support, to attract private sector
funding for hydropower projects and accelerated
development,
(d) Encourage and support collaborations between gov-
ernment and private investors in hydropower devel-
opment and operation. This approach enables sharing
of resources, risks and expertise, leading to quicker
project implementation.
(e) Promote water-energy-food- environment nexus
projects.
(f) Invest in capacity building programs that train
local institutions and individuals, including project
planning, construction, operation and mainte-
nance. The programs should also cover research
and technology development, test and verification,
environmental and social impact management
schemes that enhance skills and knowledge in
hydropower development.
(g) Create renewable energy market mechanisms, like
feed-in tariffs or power purchase agreements to offer
long-term price certainty and market stability for
hydropower producers. This will enhance the
investment climate and appealing to both local and
international investors.
(h) Develop strong environmental and social safeguards
for hydropower projects to ensure sustainable devel-
opment. This includes impact assessments, engaging
stakeholders and mitigating negative impacts on local
communities and ecosystem.
(i) Maximize the use of hydropower resources by
exploring regional cooperation for power
trading through interconnecting power grids and
macroeconomic integration with neighbouring
countries.
(j) Develop appropriate water-energy-food-environment
nexus strategy with neighbouring countries to utilise
fair water share equity. In this way, the country can
attract investment and meet its energy and economic
development needs while ensuring sustainability and
social inclusions for sustainable hydropower
development.
(k) Consider multipurpose hydropower development pro-
jects with in the country and collaborative project with
neighbouring countries to harmonise water politics.
(l) Consider multipurpose long duration energy storage
planning to boost electricity trade, sustainable integra-
tion of other renewables and sustainable food supply.
(m) Develop capacities in dam operation and dam safety
with short and long capacity building schemes.
7. Conclusions
Ethiopia’s energy sector development can be categorised as
a slowly peaking process looking at its age and develop-
ment performance. Since recently, many projects such as
hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal, bioethanol, waste to
energy and others experienced either delay or exclusion
from development plans. This is due to the continuously
decreasing leverage of the government to continue as key
player in the sector. Today the country’s installed energy
generation capacity is below 30% of its plan and below 40%
generation performance. This also applies to the hydro-
power sector, which currently is the backbone of the elec-
tricity supply and the economy. The hydropower sector is
also having the lion share to drag the country’s overall
development and economic vibrancy. It’s under perfor-
mance is primarily related to technical unavailability.
Unless the technical unavailability challenges are solved
properly, the present trend of the sector could cause cata-
strophic economic collapse in the country and neighbour-
ing countries that purchase electricity from Ethiopia. The
sluggish development pace and dwarfed performance nat-
ure of the energy sector has contributed to the overall
limited economic development of the country particularly:
delay of projects, termination of different projects, shift the
plan and budget of prioritised projects, increased youth
unemployment, education and pressure on biomass
resource and ecosystem. This deters the country’s transfor-
mation target and step back from achieving its CRGE
target and the UN SDGs.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING 131
Nomenclature
CRGE Climate resilient green economy
EELPA Ethiopian electric light and power authority
EEP Ethiopian electric power
EEPCO Ethiopian electric power corporation
EEU Ethiopian electric utility
FDRE Federal democratic republic of Ethiopia
GERD Great Ethiopian renaissance dam
GTP Growth and transformation plan
GTP I First growth and transformation plan
GTP II Second growth and transformation plan
GWh Giga Watt hour
HP Hydropower
HV High Voltage
kV Kilo Volt
kWh Kilo Watt hour
LV Low voltage
MoWIE Ministry of water irrigation and energy
MV Medium Voltage
MW Mega Watt
MWh Mega Watt hour
NEP National Electrification Plan
NF Not find
SDG Sustainable development goal
UN SDG United Nations sustainable development goal
Acknowledgments
The authors express gratitude to the Ethiopian Electric Power for supply-
ing the primary data required for this study.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they do not have any competing financial inter-
ests or personal relationships that could have appeared to claim the work
reported in this paper.
Funding
This research has not funded by any registered project and there will not
be any partial or full claim of the results.
Notes on contributors
Asfafaw H. Tesfay conceptualization, data collection, data analysis, writ-
ing and editing.
Mulualem G. Gebresilassie writing and editing.
Leif Lia Supervision and editing
ORCID
Asfafaw H. Tesfay http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4776-3470
Mulualem G. Gebreslassie http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5509-5866
Data availability statement
The data used in this research will be available based on request.
Dedication
The authors want to dedicate this work to Kibrom Gebremedhin
Yohannes, Ashenafi Atsbeha, colleagues of the 1
st
and 2
nd
authors and
other Tigrayan scholars who sacrificed their precious life in the Tigray
war, from November 4, 2020 to Novemeber 3, 2022, in defence of their
community against identity existence.
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