Ethiopia and Kenya both embrace renewables for their electricity production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethiopia produces\u00a0all the power\u00a0for its national grid from renewable sources, and is home to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the largest hydropower plant in Africa. In Kenya, renewables account for\u00a0around 90%\u00a0of electricity,\u00a0<\/strong>and the country boasts one of the largest geothermal facilities in the world, in the Olkaria Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But relying on renewables can be hard: electricity can\u2019t always be generated when needed (a drought can mean no hydropower) and renewable energy is difficult to store. One solution? The Ethiopia-Kenya Electricity Highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vast piece of infrastructure opened officially last year after a decade of work and\u00a0$1.2 billion\u00a0of investment. Now, when one country needs more electricity for its national grid and the other has a surplus, electricity automatically flows across the border, along 650 miles of transmission lines, so that supply meets demand. Last week, a Kenya-Tanzania link began operations, which will let energy flow across that border, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts say <\/strong>sharing electricity (or \u201cpower sharing\u201d) between African countries is fundamental to a successful clean energy transition. According to Darlain Edeme, African Energy Analyst for the International Energy Agency (IEA), it can \u201cimprove quality, reliability, security, and have benefits on prices,\u201d in a continent where demand for electricity is rapidly increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Ethiopia, a country with a population of nearly 130 million, electricity consumption per capita\u00a0quadrupled\u00a0between 2000 and 2022. In Kenya, it\u00a0rose by three quarters\u00a0within the same period. And it\u2019s set to continue rising \u2013 in 2017 Ethiopia launched its National Electrification Plan that aimed to achieve universal electrification by 2025, despite only about one in four rural households currently having access to electricity. Across Africa, the\u00a0UN has targeted\u00a0universal access to electricity by 2030, which would mean adding the 600 million people currently without it \u2013 nearly half the population of the continent \u2013 in the next five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a rising energy access deficit \u2013 the difference between supply and demand \u2013 it makes sense for neighbors to pool their resources. But power sharing requires sophisticated infrastructure \u2013 namely, interconnectors \u2013 transmission lines that enable electricity to flow both ways across a border or over a large distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s expensive, too. The Ethiopia-Kenya Electricity Highway follows the model of other interconnectors in Africa, including one between\u00a0Zambia and Namibia, which has run since 2010 and cost $300 million to construct, and a 1,000-mile interconnector\u00a0between two regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, running since 1982 and costing over $800 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the African Development Bank (AfDB), which contributed\u00a0over $300 million of funding\u00a0towards the Ethiopia-Kenya link, it\u2019s worth it. \u201cYou see population growth somewhat outstripping the growth of new connections,\u201d said Daniel Schroth, director of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Department at the AfDB. \u201cThere\u2019s a big push on addressing this energy access deficit more decisively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the highway opened, Ethiopia\u2019s electricity supply has provided vital backup for Kenya, which has been importing 200 megawatts (MW) of power daily <\/strong>from its neighbor, equivalent to around 10% of the peak demand of Kenya\u2019s national grid. The interconnector has the capacity to transfer up to 2,000 MW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For many countries in East Africa with a history of power outages, including Ethiopia and Kenya, access to a backup supply could be a lifeline. But while Alemayehu Wubeshet Zegeye, manager for Regional Power Systems Operations in the East African Region for the AfDB, said that the new interconnector \u201cabsolutely will reduce the number of blackouts,\u201d it cannot remove them entirely. IEA analyst Edeme said that while having access to backup supplies of electricity is one thing, having functioning utilities to distribute it is another. Across Africa, he said, utilities \u201care not in the best shape from a financial perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September,\u00a0Reuters reported\u00a0two \u201cmajor blackouts\u201d in Kenya in a single week, with Energy Minister Opiyo Wandayi blaming \u201csub-optimal investment in infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ethiopia-Kenya Electricity Highway, also funded by the World Bank, is one part of a wider project for the\u00a0Eastern African Power Pool\u00a0(EAPP), a group of 13 countries brought together to meet rising demand for electricity and ensure backup supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EAPP is one of five power pools in Africa, which, with the help of interconnectors, could one day link together the energy supplies of every region in the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe vision clearly articulated by the African Union is to create an African single electricity market building on the regional power pools being interconnected,\u201d said Schroth. The hope is that with increased competition will come falling prices for consumers, and new sources of revenue for countries producing surplus energy that \u2013 in the absence of expensive storage systems \u2013 would otherwise go to waste. Already, due to the electricity highway, Ethiopia has increased revenue from its electricity exports, which were previously limited to Djibouti, by almost a half, according to Zegeye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having added the Kenya-Tanzania interconnector to its power sharing network, the next target for the EAPP is to link Tanzania (and therefore Kenya and Ethiopia, too)\u00a0to Zambia, both countries in the\u00a0Southern African Power Pool\u00a0(SAPP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interconnectors are popular outside Africa, too, with a network of\u00a0over 400\u00a0in Europe. A link between Spain and Morocco already connects the electricity supplies of Europe and Africa, and another \u2013 between Greece and Egypt \u2013 is currently under construction, with the aim of completion\u00a0by 2029.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think there has been a rallying call over the last two years,\u201d said Schroth, explaining the proliferation of interconnector projects across the continent and the world. \u201cThere won\u2019t be an energy transition without transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With more funding and international cooperation, there is hope that Africa will one day become a clean energy powerhouse. \u201cI\u2019m optimistic,\u201d said Edeme, \u201cI see a lot of momentum right now in the sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ethiopia and Kenya both embrace renewables for their electricity production. Ethiopia produces\u00a0all the power\u00a0for its national grid from renewable sources, and is home to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the largest hydropower plant in Africa. In Kenya, renewables account for\u00a0around 90%\u00a0of electricity,\u00a0and the country boasts one of the largest geothermal facilities in the world, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,2,21],"tags":[7,231,22],"class_list":{"0":"post-39990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-energy","8":"category-featured","9":"category-technology","10":"tag-apie-project","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-technology"},"yoast_head":"\nPower Sharing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Energy Security For East Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Connecting The Continent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Environmental Benefits Around The World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n