CAIRO -

Months after announcing the trial operation of the Renaissance Dam, talk increased about Ethiopia's efforts to transform into a regional center for the export of electric power;

It was reinforced by the conclusion of agreements for the same purpose with some of its neighbors.

One day after Addis Ababa announced the trial operation of the Renaissance Dam, and its total construction exceeded 84% last February, Ethiopia and Kenya began talks about Nairobi's plans to purchase electricity from the dam, which aims to reach 6,000 megawatts upon completion.

In the past years, Addis Ababa signed, according to Ethiopian media, a number of agreements to export electricity to neighboring countries, including Djibouti, Sudan and Kenya, and it is planned to initiate agreements with other countries in later stages after the full operation of the dam.

The last of these agreements, earlier this month, was an announcement to export 100 megawatts of electric power to South Sudan, over a period of 3 years, to be gradually increased to 400 megawatts, as part of an electrical interconnection project between the two countries.

Ethiopia earns about 50 million dollars annually from exporting electric power to neighboring countries, including Sudan, and aims to reach 400 million dollars in the next ten years, according to government media.

Which raises questions in Cairo about the relationship of this to plans to operate the dam and the conflict with Egypt, which seems to extend from water to fierce competition for energy supplies in an African market thirsty for electricity.

Egyptian fears

The Ethiopian interest in the field of electricity export in recent years has strengthened competition with Egypt and it seems that in the coming years the dispute over the Nile waters will be overcome to extend to the energy file and fierce competition over the African market and the electricity-thirsty Arab neighborhood.

Cairo still sees the Ethiopian behavior as a "violation of the commitments signed between the two countries under the 2015 Declaration of Principles", which has disrupted the dam negotiations since April 2021 in the deadlocked track since 2011.

With regard to the recent Ethiopian agreements to supply electricity to neighboring countries, concerned Egyptian observers and experts agreed that they do not mean a success for the Renaissance Dam, and that electricity does not necessarily have to be directly from it, as there are dams in Ethiopia on other rivers.

The experts stressed that Ethiopia will not succeed in achieving its goals without Egypt and Sudan, in addition to the absence of technical capabilities that would enable it to turn into a platform for the supply of electricity.

As for the possible repercussions in this regard, the speakers ruled out Addis Ababa’s ability to put Cairo under high pressure on the dam file on the one hand, and thus push the countries importing Ethiopian electricity in the future to be a bulwark against Egypt as countries that will be harmed by any move targeting the dam. .

media balloons

In his reading of the recent Ethiopian agreements with neighboring countries, and their efforts to transform into a regional platform for electric power, the former Minister of Irrigation Mohamed Nasr Allam believes that Ethiopia will not be able to export electricity from the Renaissance Dam to cover its loan debts except by exporting electricity through Egypt and exporting part of it to Sudan, and this will not be At the expense of one point of the Nile water as an Egyptian historical right.

With regard to Ethiopia's agreements to export electricity, Allam indicated in statements to Al Jazeera Net that they are agreements not related to the Renaissance Dam, most of which are media balloons aimed at presenting Ethiopia and the Renaissance Dam as a source of electrical energy, he said.

As for the recent Ethiopian agreement to export 100 megawatts to South Sudan, the former minister considered it a “joke because it is a farcical quantity,” adding that its source will likely be from a dam that Ethiopia is building on the Sobat River, and Ethiopia’s electricity for Kenya comes from Jebe dams (on the Omo River shared between the two countries) and not It is related to the Renaissance Dam, and the agreement with Kenya witnessed differences between the two countries due to the fair and equitable use of water, which reached the United Nations."

negative gesture

In turn, the academic specializing in African affairs, Khairy Omar, stressed his belief that Ethiopia will not be able to fulfill its obligations towards its neighbors in the matter of exporting electricity in the medium term, especially produced from the Renaissance Dam.

In statements to Al Jazeera Net, Omar said that the Ethiopian talk about agreements to export electricity from dams, not including the Renaissance Dam, is not new, but dates back to two years ago, and it included Sudan as well, but Addis Ababa had breached its promises in the agreements with Khartoum.

The Egyptian academic warned of the repercussions of what he described as the unilateral Ethiopian moves in its endeavors to operate the Renaissance Dam and generate electricity and export it later, explaining that Ethiopia's announcement last February of the trial operation of the dam represents a negative sign and a continuation of the unilateral path, which worsens the negotiations with Egypt and Sudan.

As for his country’s position on the Ethiopian efforts to transform into a regional center for electric energy, he indicated that Cairo and Khartoum still agree on the need to reach a binding solution, and on the Ethiopian side, the Egyptian academic sees that Addis Ababa’s moves come in the context of political, not technical or economic endeavors to strengthen the position of his country. The government is before the people in light of the recent civil wars, he said.

Omar also played down the chances of Ethiopia’s success in pushing neighboring countries through electricity agreements to be a bulwark against any possible Egyptian move to disrupt the dam project, citing reasons including the poor infrastructure in Ethiopia and the absence of the electrical interconnection network to achieve self-sufficiency at least.

Omar concluded by emphasizing that the Renaissance Dam, when its construction is completed, will not be able to cover the electricity needs of the Ethiopian state itself.

There is no success without Egypt

Agreeing with the two previous opinions, the Egyptian academic Abbas Sharaki, professor of water resources at Cairo University, went on to say that Ethiopia’s conclusion of electricity export agreements does not mean the success of the Renaissance Dam, explaining that it does not produce anything and that electricity deals do not necessarily have to be directly from it. There are other dams such as Gibe 3 on the Omo River.

Sharaki explained, on his Facebook page, that Ethiopia is currently producing about 4 thousand megawatts from all dams and power stations, with a population of 115 million people, and a thousand megawatts is sufficient for 3.5 million people (as is the case in Egypt), and it is expected that the Renaissance Dam will produce between 2 to 4,000 megawatts upon completion.

The Egyptian expert interested in the Renaissance Dam file and constantly publishing about it added that Ethiopia needs 33,000 megawatts to suffice the current population, meaning that it needs 8 to 10 dams like the Renaissance Dam to cover the Ethiopian people's need for electricity, he believes.

And he reinforced his opinion that "there is no internal electrical transmission network to transmit the electricity of the Renaissance Dam, and the planning from the beginning is to export it to neighboring countries, and this will not be achieved efficiently except by linking with Egypt and exporting it to Ethiopia, and in all cases, most of the Ethiopian people will continue to live in the dark," according to him. .

He advised that the solution to Ethiopia in the electricity crisis is to "establish hundreds of small dams in the high mountains to provide electricity to villages and tribes, as well as drinking water, and to introduce supplementary irrigation for rain-fed agriculture," noting that there is no harm to the downstream countries from small dams, but the Renaissance Dam remains for it. Primarily political goals by successive Ethiopian governments, according to the speaker.