Ethiopia on Monday, 8 July 2019, lifted the electricity rationing it had imposed on homes and businesses in May, after water levels rose at its hydroelectric dams. Seleshi Bekele, the minister of water, irrigation and electricity, said the change followed a rise in the reservoir at the Gibe III dam on the Omo River, according to state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting, as reported by Reuters.
When he announced the rationing in May, Seleshi said falling water at Gibe III had left the grid 476 megawatts short, more than a third of the country’s generation of about 1,400 megawatts. Under that programme, households faced blackouts lasting several hours a day, and cement and steel factories had to cut shifts.
Relief for industry was only partial at first. For the next 15 days companies would be allowed 50 percent of their power needs during the day and their full needs between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., Seleshi said, according to Africanews. Load shedding, the method used since May, temporarily cuts supply to parts of the grid when demand is higher than the power available.
The minister said more power would reach the grid when the Genale Dawa III dam, with an installed capacity of 254 megawatts, was inaugurated the following month.
The shortfall had reached beyond Ethiopia’s borders. During the cuts, Ethiopia suspended electricity sales to Sudan and reduced supply to Djibouti, Mereja reported in May, and The Reporter found that the rolling blackouts were squeezing the cement industry. The episode exposed how heavily the country’s power supply depended on rainfall feeding a few large reservoirs.
Sources: Tadias Magazine (Reuters), Africanews, Mereja (May 2019), Mereja (June 2019)