Ethiopia inaugurates Africa's largest dam, a pledge of an "energy revolution"

Ethiopia officially inaugurated its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, the largest hydroelectric project in Africa.

The mega-dam is one of the few issues that generates unanimity in this Horn of Africa country torn apart by several armed conflicts, still active in the country's two most populated regions, Amhara and Oromia.

Tigray emerged in 2022 from a civil war that left at least 600,000 dead, according to an estimate by the African Union.

The GERD is a huge structure , 1.8 kilometers wide and 145 meters high , with a total capacity of 74 billion cubic meters of water.

For Africa's second most populous country , where some 45% of its 130 million people have no access to electricity, it is a pledge of an "energy revolution" , according to experts.

The GERD is "a great achievement not only for Ethiopia, but for all Black people," Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Tuesday at the inauguration of the project in the presence of regional leaders.

"True prosperity"

The mega-dam is expected to eventually reach a production capacity of 5,000 megawatts (MW), double what Ethiopia currently produces.

However, this power is significantly lower than that of the two largest dams in the world, the Three Gorges dam (22.5 GW) and the Baihetan dam (16 GW), both located on the Yangtze River in China.

The GERD will enable Addis Ababa to generate significant revenue from electricity sold to its neighbors . Prime Minister Abiy estimated its benefits last week at $1 billion per year, for a total estimated cost of $4 billion.

It is also a strong sign, as Ethiopia is positioning itself as a major African promoter of the electric car, and is the first country in the world to have banned the import of thermal vehicles at the start of 2024.

The festivities began Monday evening with lanterns and lasers, and a swarm of drones pounding positive slogans into the sky—like "geopolitical ascent" and "a leap into the future."

The event, which featured a giant fireworks display, was broadcast on public television and also on social media, where it prompted an avalanche of congratulatory messages: "This is true prosperity," wrote one internet user. "We did it," exclaimed another, while a third wrote: "We will win!"

The foundation stone of the GERD was laid in April 2011. Both the TPLF - the Tigrayan party, in power until 2018 - and the Prosperity Party of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who succeeded him, take credit for it.

"Existential threat"

Outside Ethiopia, the mega-dam has been sharply criticized by Cairo , which, fearing a drying up of its main source of water supply, insists that it constitutes an "existential threat" to Egypt.

A country of approximately 110 million people, Egypt depends on the Nile for 97% of its water needs, particularly for agriculture.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pledged that Egypt will take all measures under international law to defend its water security .

"Anyone who thinks Egypt will turn a blind eye to its water rights is mistaken," he told reporters last month.

The Egyptian government has recently moved closer to Ethiopia's two neighboring countries: Eritrea, which currently has strained relations with Addis Ababa, and Somalia.

Sudan also expressed concern. At the end of June, the two countries reiterated "their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile Basin."

Various attempts at mediation over the past decade between the three countries - successively under the aegis of the United States, the World Bank, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the African Union - have all failed.

An open conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt is, however , "unlikely" , according to various researchers interviewed by AFP.

And Ethiopia wants to be reassuring. "For downstream countries, Ethiopia has achieved the GERD, a shining example for black populations," Abiy Ahmed said. "This will not affect your development in any way," he reassured during the inauguration.