Ashegoda windfarm outside Mekelle in Tigray state cost €210m and builds on plan to create 'climate resilient' economy by 2025. (Photo: A boy stands near one of Ashegoda's 84 wind turbines/ Reuters)
By David Smith, Africa correspondent
A windfarm billed as the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa has been opened by Ethiopia’s prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, a potentially crucial step for the continent’s renewable energy industry.
The €210m (£179m) Ashegoda windfarm consists of 84 hi-tech turbines towering above an arid region where villagers herd cattle and ride donkey-drawn carts as they have for generations.
The project, outside Mekelle in Tigray state, about 475 miles north of the capital, Addis Ababa, has a capacity of 120MW and will produce about 400m KWh a year. It was completed in phases over three and a half years and has produced 90m KWh for the national grid.
The farm, inaugurated by Desalegn on Saturday, was supervised by German company Lahmeyer International and implemented by France’s Vergnet with French funding. But the Ethiopian government insisted there were also local spin-offs.
“The project has provided very important experience-sharing for Ethiopia’s national companies, who have been involved in the construction of civil works such as geotechnical investigations, roads, turbine foundations, sub-station erection and electro-mechanical erection works,” it said.
Read more at The Guardian.
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