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Content
1. Background

2. Design

3. Cost and financing

4. Benefits

5. Environmental and social impacts

5.1 Impact on Ethiopia

5.2 Impact on Sudan and Egypt

6. References

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 Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, formerly known as the Millennium Dam and sometimes
referred to as Hidase Dam, is an under construction gravity dam on the Blue Nile River about 40 km
(25 mi) east of Sudan in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia. At 5250 MW, the dam will be the
largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed, and the reservoir at 63 billion cubic meters
will be one of the continents largest.

Background

On 31 March 2011, a day after the project was made public, a US$4.8 billion contract was
awarded without competitive bidding to Salini Costruttori and the dam's foundation stone was
laid on 2 April 2011 by Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. A rock crushing plant has been
constructed along with a small air strip for fast transportation. Construction is expected to last 44
months when two generators would be operational. Egypt, which lies downstream, opposes the
dam which it believes will reduce the amount of water that it gets from the Nile. Zenawi argues,
based on an unnamed study, that the dam would not reduce water availability downstream and
would also regulate water for irrigation. In May 2011, it was announced that Ethiopia would
share blueprints for the dam with Egypt so the downstream impact could be examined.

The dam was originally called "Project X" and after its contract was announced, it was called
the Millennium Dam. On 15 April 2011, the Council of Ministers renamed it Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam.

Design
The dam will be a 145 m (476 ft) tall; 1,800 m (5,906 ft) long gravity-type composed of roller-
compacted concrete and will have two power houses, each on either side of the spillway. The
right power house will contain ten 350 MW Francis turbine-generators while the left will contain
five. Supporting the dam and reservoir will be a 5 km (3 mi) long and 50 m (164 ft) high saddle
dam. The dam's reservoir will have a volume of 63,000,000,000 m3 (51,074,931 acre·ft).

Cost and financing

The Ethiopian government has stated that it intends to fund the entire cost of the dam by itself. It
has issued a bond targeted at Ethiopians in the country and abroad to that end. The turbines and
associated electrical equipment of the hydropower plants costing about US$1.8 billion are
reportedly financed by Chinese banks. This would leave US$3 billion to be financed by the
Ethiopian government through other means. The estimated US$4.8 billion construction cost,
apparently excluding the cost of power transmission lines, corresponds to more than 15% of
Ethiopia’s Gross Domestic Product of US$31 billion in 2009.

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Benefits

A major benefit of the dam will be hydropower production. The electricity to be produced by the
hydropower plant is to be sold in Ethiopia and to neighboring countries including Sudan and
possibly Egypt. Selling the electricity from the dam would require the construction of massive
transmission lines to major consumption centers such as Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa and
Sudan’s capital Khartoum, both located more than 400km away from the dam. These sales would
come on top of electricity that is expected to be sold from other large hydropower plants that are
under construction in Ethiopia, such as Gilgel Gibe III.

The plant load factor of the planned hydropower plant - the expected electricity production
divided by the potential production if the power plant was utilized permanently at full capacity -
is only 33% compared to 45-60% for other, smaller hydropower plants in Ethiopia. Critics
conclude that a smaller dam would be more cost-effective.

Environmental and social impacts

No environmental and social impact assessment for the dam has been published so far. It is not
clear if one has been undertaken or is underway. This makes it difficult to quantify the positive
and negative impacts of the dam. However, a qualitative assessment of the positive and negative
social and environmental impacts of the dam is attempted below. Public consultation about dams
in Ethiopia is affected by the political climate in the country. The NGO International Rivers
reports that “conversations with civil society groups in Ethiopia indicate that questioning the
government’s energy sector plans is highly risky, and there are legitimate concerns of
government persecution. Because of this political climate, no groups are actively pursuing the
issues surrounding hydropower dams, nor publicly raising concerns about the risks. In this
situation, extremely limited and inadequate public consultation has been organized” during the
implementation of major dams.

Impact on Ethiopia

Since the Blue Nile is a highly seasonal river, the dam would reduce flooding downstream of the
dam, including on the 40km stretch within Ethiopia. On the one hand, the reduction of flooding
is beneficial since it protects settlements from flood damage. On the other hand, it can be
harmful, if flood recession agriculture is practiced in the river valley downstream of the dam
since it deprives fields from being watered. The dam could also serve as a bridge across the Blue
Nile, complementing a bridge that was under construction in 2009 further upstream. The dam
will affect the livelihoods of people living in the area upstream of the dam that will be flooded by
the reservoir. The Benishangul-Gumuz Region is not densely settled, with only 12 inhabitants
per square kilometer on average, including many nomads.

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Impact on Sudan and Egypt

The reservoir volume is about equivalent to the annual flow of the Nile at the Sudanese-Egyptian
border (65.5 billion cubic meters). This loss to downstream countries would occur only once and
would be most likely be spread over several years while the reservoir fills. However, it will still
affect downstream countries in a way that is not negligible. Evaporative losses from the dam’s
reservoir will permanently reduce the flow of the Blue Nile. The magnitude of these losses is not
known. Ethiopian sources point out that both the area of the reservoir and the evaporation rate
will be smaller than for Lake Nasser in Egypt. Ethiopia's Minister of Water and Energy,
Alemayehu Tegenu, claims that by storing more water in the reservoir of the Millennium Dam
and less water in Lake Nasser, "more than 7.5 billion cubic meters of water could be saved from
evaporation". At the same time the hydropower plant would be able to produce more than twice
as much electricity as the Aswan High Dam (5,250 MW vs. 2,100 MW). The dam would retain
silt. It would thus increase the useful lifetime of dams in Sudan – such as the Roseires Dam, the
Sennar Dam and the Merowe Dam – and of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. The beneficial and
harmful effects of flood control would affect the Sudanese portion of the Blue Nile, just as it
would affect the Ethiopian part of the Blue Nile valley downstream of the dam. Nevertheless,
Sudan and Egypt have serious concerns about the project; Egypt has requested that it be allowed
to inspect the dam, in order to allay its fears, but Ethiopia has denied the request unless Egypt
relinquishes its veto on water allocation.

There is no international treaty for the sharing of the waters of the Blue Nile between Ethiopia on
the one hand and Sudan and Egypt on the other hand. A 1959 Nile treaty between Egypt and
Sudan does not include Ethiopia. A Nile treaty signed by the upper riparian states in 2010, the
Cooperative Framework Agreement, has not been signed by either Egypt or Sudan. The Nile
Basin Initiative provides a framework for dialogue among all Nile riparian countries.

Country Ethiopia

Locale Benishangul-Gumuz Region

11°12′51″N 35°05′35″E11.21417°N

Coordinates 35.09306°ECoordinates: 11°12′51″N

35°05′35″E11.21417°N 35.09306°E

Status Preliminary construction

Construction began April 2011

Construction cost $4.8 billion USD

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Owner(s) Ethiopian Electric Power Corp

Dam and spillways

Type of dam Gravity, roller-compacted concrete

Height 145 m (476 ft)

Length 1,800 m (5,906 ft)

Impounds Blue Nile River

Reservoir

Creates Millennium Reservoir

63,000,000,000 m3 (51,074,931
Capacity
acre·ft)

Power station

Commission date September 2014 (planned)

Turbines 15 x 350 MW Francis turbines

Installed capacity 5,250 MW

Net generation 15,000 GWh (planned)

Website
http://www.grandmillenniumdam.net/