Photos and information reveal for the first time .. Al Jazeera Net wandering in the dam of the Ethiopian Renaissance

Hassan Razaq - Dam of Renaissance

From the capital, Addis Ababa, we took the plane to the city of Asosa where we spent the night. At dawn, we rode a four-wheel drive on a trek, heading for the giant renaissance dam.

On the way, houses made of bamboo, bamboo and grass are scattered, and are inhabited by people from the Alberta tribes who speak the Nile language as well as Arabic.

These areas are located in the semi-autonomous Bani Shankul Gomes region and follow the nine-region Ethiopian federation.

In a valley surrounded by mountains, Al Nahda Dam lies on an area of ​​1,800 km 2, which is equal to the size of ten football fields.

The visit came in coordination and arrangement of the media section of the Nahdha dam project. It comes after the suspension of journalists' entry into the project for a year and a half due to the failure of the works and its withdrawal from the local executing company, in addition to the death of its former director.

Completion rate
Following the arrival, Engineer Afrim Weldi, Deputy Project Manager, gave a press conference on the details of the work in the dam.

He pointed out that the work is going according to specific schedules, indicating that the overall achievement rate amounted to 67%, indicating that the first phase of energy production will start by 2020 with a capacity of 750 megawatts per year, while production will reach its maximum capacity in 2022.

We toured the perimeter of the project and allowed the media for the first time access to places they had not previously had access to, such as the dam's interior where the "energy room" that hosts turbines and generators is private.

Spiral casing
Electric engineer Reem Gabri Hewitt said that the contracts for the manufacture of all 16 turbines of Al Nahda Dam have been completed under the supervision of specialized foreign companies and will be supplied in succession.

"This is the spiral casing or scroll cover that will pass water to the turbine," he said. "We have almost finished manufacturing two of them."

We arrived at the dam or "reservoir" as technically known, a location not allowed by the authorities. Here we met the construction engineer Ribporto Melinini, who represents Salini Imbergello, the main contractor of the dam.

Melinini explains that if the concrete body of the dam is completed, a lagoon will be created behind it, which will absorb 74 billion cubic meters of water, pointing out to Al-Jazeera Net that the dam was designed to operate the water rush card stored in the lake, which ensures great stability in generating electricity.

He added that the water in the lake will be 145 meters in the case of flooding, and 85 meters in the case of the normal flow of the river, indicating that once the lake is filled the water level will rise in front of the dam to more than 145 meters.

When the water reaches this altitude, the turbine stations will run and the water will begin to flow through the dam, resulting in power generation.

Saddle plug
Five kilometers east of Al Nahda Dam, the technically well-known dam, the Saddle Dam, is 60 meters high and has been completed by 98 percent.

According to the construction director of the Palazzo Casa, the saddle dam aims to limit the water of the lake and ensure that it does not leak to the lowlands, in addition to its important role in preventing flooding of villages adjacent to the dam in case of any flood.

The dispute between the two sides is based on the technical aspect related to the way and time of filling the lake. Egypt says that water reserves will deprive it of 60% of its share of the Blue Nile River, while it already needs to raise its quota to meet its growing needs for electricity generation and agricultural use.

On the other hand, Ethiopia says it is constantly coordinating with the two downstream states based on its commitment to the principle of not harming their interests, pointing to the lack of information in Egypt about the dam, stressing that it will not harm the Egyptian people.

Path of negotiations
As for the course of the political negotiations on the dam, the last meeting between the three countries in February was at the level of the presidents, on the sidelines of the African summit in Addis Ababa.

The meeting resulted in an agreement not to harm the interests of peoples and joint action for development, as well as a meeting of the sixth level at the level of foreign ministers and water and security officials.

However, this meeting has not yet been held because Sudan has been unable to attend as a result of the worsening situation there.

It is noteworthy that the work in Al-Nahdha Dam started in 2011 at a cost of more than four billion dollars, and with funding from the government treasury and donations from Ethiopians.

The dam employs about 10,000 people, whose work has been distributed equally among the nine Ethiopian provinces in a message to involve representatives of all ethnic Ethiopian peoples in the completion of the dam, which will become the largest hydroelectric dam on the African continent and the world's tenth with an annual capacity of more than six Thousands of megawatts.

Recently, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed announced that the construction of the dam would be delayed by 2022 and would require additional costs after it was due to be completed by 2017.