Evaluating the hydropower potential of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

One of the largest hydropower projects in Africa is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is currently under construction in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in Ethiopia. The GERD has been billed as a hydropower project that will significantly improve electricity supply in Ethiopia and neighboring countries with a total capacity of 5150MW. This paper evaluates the hydrological potential of the UBN basin for meeting the declared hydropower production design from the GERD. Our investigation indicated that the hydrology of the UBN can sustain the inflow to the GERD that would produce 13629GWh per annum (capacity factor=0.30). Investigations further revealed that the GERD operation in the current design configuration will likely result in eight (out of 14) idle turbines every year. Our study also demonstrated that current GERD capacity (5150MW) is more reasonable than previous designs (e.g., 6000 and 6450MW).