Ethiopia Earns Over $95m from Power Export to Sudan, Djibouti

ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia has earned more than 95.5 million U.S. dollars from electric energy export during the recently concluded 2021/22 fiscal year, Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) said on Friday.

The electricity trade revenue shows a $5 million jump from the previous year during which the nation secured $90.5 million from electric power sales.

Neighboring Djibouti and Sudan are importers of Ethiopian Electric energy.

Ethiopia’s state-owned electric producer had a plan to export a combined total of 1,663 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity valued at $89.6 million for the 2021/22 fiscal year that ended on July 7.

The electricity export was able to outperform the target.

A combined total of 1,700GWh of electricity have been exported to Sudan and Djibouti in the year, generating 95.45 million US dollars in revenue, EEP said.

Most of the export was made to Sudan. About 1,109GWh of electricity worth $54.66m was sold to Sudan. Djibouti also imported 600GWh electric energy and paid $40.78 million.

The annual plan was achieved mainly because power generating dams have been able to capture enough water in their reservoirs, helping power interruption to decrease significantly, according to EEP.

The Electricity export total earnings contributed about two percent of Ethiopia’s total export trade revenue in 2021/22FY.

Authorities are currently working on expanding the contribution to 400 million U.S. dollars with a plan to economically integrate the East African region through electricity in the coming ten years.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is expected to play a key role in the plan. The national flag project, with a capacity to generate up to 5,000MW, started generating electricity for the first time last February.