Ethiopia seeks to add 1.2 GW of wind capacity, starts tender

Wind turbines at work. Author: Nick Cross. License: Creative Commons, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

June 20 (SeeNews) - Ethiopia’s ministry of water, irrigation and electricity (MoWIE) has plans for the addition of 1.2 GW of wind power capacity and has already launched a tender for 550 MW.

The ministry recently floated a tender for the construction of three wind parks -- the 300-MW Aysha project in Somali region, 100-MW Debreberhan in Amhara region and 150-MW Iteya in Oromia region. Pre-qualification was open from May 12 to June 10, 2016, with the bidding documents expected to be made available to pre-qualified bidders by the end of this month.

In addition, the ministry is conducting a feasibility study for two other projects, the Debre Markos and Asella wind farms, the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) said on Thursday, citing Bizuneh Tolcha, public relation director at the ministry.

All of these wind parks are planned for Ethiopia's second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II), from 2016 to 2021. During the country's first GTP, it installed the Ashegoda wind park, and Adama I and II wind farms, which have a combined capacity of 324 MW.

Tolcha says that Ethiopia also wants to expand its hydropower, solar, geothermal and biogas power capacity. The country is looking for a developer of the 100-MW Mekele and 100-MW Humera solar projects, also through recently-launched tenders.