14 DAY TRIAL // Ethiopia is now home to Africa's largest wind farm. Thus, it was this past weekend when the farm officially became operational, and started feeding electricity into the grid.
According to the engineers who worked on this project, it will not be long until the farm starts working at full capacity and feeds some 400 million kWh of electricity into the grid on a yearly basis.
Business Green tells us that the farm took about four years to be built. It sits at a distance of about 18 kilometers (11.18 miles) from the northern city of Mekelle, and it comprises 84 turbines.
French bank BNP Paribas, the French Development Agency (ADF) and the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) have all financially supported this project, the same source details.
However, the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation alone will be in charge of running the wind farm.
Aljazeera reports that, for the time being, Ethiopia's energy demands are chiefly met by hydropower plants.
However, the country's high officials wish to tap into other green energy sources, and hope that at some point, they will succeed in turning Ethiopia into a major energy exporter.
“Various studies have proved that there is potential to harness abundant wind energy resources in every region of Ethiopia. We cannot maintain growth without utilizing the energy sector,” Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn reportedly told the press.
By the looks of it, this 84-turbine wind farm currently up and running is expected to do more than just up the amount of electricity that Ethiopia's national grid has fed into it on a daily basis.
Thus, specialists say that the farm will likely tackle whatever problems tend to arrive in this part of the world during the dry season.
“It compliments hydropower, which is seasonal. When you have a dry water season we have higher wind speed,” said Mihret Debebe, the current CEO of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation. “There is harmony between the two sources of energy,” he further explained.