Analysis in brief: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was built for electricity generation. By this measure, the project has been a short-term success, but in the long-term, environmental concerns arise. Proactive mitigation efforts are underway to ensure that climate change will not render the dam obsolete.

The environmental costs of most proposed dams, as well as financial considerations and engineering challenges, tend to make any new dam project controversial. For Ethiopia, the degree of controversy when it announced plans to dam the Nile River for hydroelectric generation led to Egypt and Sudan inferring warfare to secure their water rights.

Past fears have given way to present-day realities because the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), after 12 years of construction, has been completed and is now operational. The US$5-billion project was inaugurated at Guba in the country’s mountainous northwest on 9 September 2025. The dam was built astride the Blue Nile River, which separates Ethiopia from Sudan and is one of the two rivers that merge in Sudan to create the Nile River. For now, war talks have been pacified by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s remarks on the inauguration day that the dam would “provide clean energy, to light up the region, and to change the history of black people.”

As Africa’s largest hydroelectric plant and one of the world’s 20 largest dams, this infrastructure triumph comes at an opportune time for Ahmed’s administration, when environmentalists are forewarning of the future of hydroelectric dams. A closer examination of these concerns suggests the probability that GERD may not be a reliable electricity generator because of global warming. However, the dam is not doomed to fail, and even as the dam goes online, government officials have clarified that the project is a part of a larger renewable energy plan.

Ethiopia’s GERD, standing as Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam, boasts an installed capacity of 5,150 megawatts, symbolising the continent’s growing drive for energy independence.
Data courtesy: Reuters, WeBuild, African Exponent, The Energy Year, World Bank, AU, Energy Capital Power, Ghana News Online, 2025

Electricity generation is dam’s primary goal

In Ethiopia and regionally, a boost in energy supply will lift economic development, which has long been hindered by erratic power supplies. Thus, Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam was built as a hydroelectric plant and is achieving that objective. The dam has two power houses, with 13 turbines that are turned by the flow of water from the new reservoir with a storage capacity of 74-billion m³ of water.

Ethiopia’s National Drought Plan seeks to establish a framework for a quality and predictable multi-sectoral response to drought occurrences across the nation, ensuring coordinated efforts that significantly expedite the mitigation, and recovery of communities impacted by drought.
Data courtesy: UN Convention to Combat Desertification, 2025

While GERD will not meet the entirety of Ethiopia’s electricity supply, it will satisfy a sizeable portion of the country’s growing energy needs. For decades, Ethiopia has been energy poor. In 2025, up to 60-million Ethiopians (half the population) live without electricity. A new power supply from GERD will facilitate greater connectivity. As the dam reaches its full generation capacity, a surplus of electricity will result. This will not be useable in all parts of the country because isolated spots will remain off-grid due to the cost of extending infrastructure to remote locations. These will rely upon solar power and other renewable energy options deployed on a small scale. The excess power can be sold to neighbouring countries, making Ethiopia an energy exporting country and moving the East African region closer to energy self-sufficiency. Kenya’s geothermal energy reserves set it up to become East Africa’s regional energy hub, but with GERD online, Ethiopia is positioned to hold that distinction.

GERD’s waters stem from a reservoir that has a secondary use besides for electricity generation, and that is for agricultural irrigation in Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries. South Sudan and Sudan are likely to be the first beneficiaries. When construction commenced in 2011, the main GERD reservoir was planned to have a water volume of 66 km3 and a surface area of 1 680 km² when full. As construction progressed, the need to expand the reservoir as a flood control measure increased its size to a capacity of 74 km³. This represents an enormous amount of Nile water, whose annual flow is 84 km³. The eventual construction of pipelines will bring this water to agricultural lands and will aid in mitigating the effects of droughts.

Addressing climate change concerns

Climate change challenges the viability of dams all over the world and can be expected to affect GERD similarly. Extreme weather conditions brought about by global warming will bring greater flood risks to rivers like the Blue Nile. A study by the publication Water concluded that 61% of the world’s hydropower dams are located in areas that will face more extreme risks for droughts and floods by 2050. While globally, in the present, one in 25 dams are in areas made vulnerable to flooding caused by climate change, by 2050, this number will increase to one in five. Against this eventuality, GERD was redesigned during construction to expand its reservoir capacity to absorb sudden and substantial amounts of flood water. This tactic will also lessen flood water pressures on the dam itself and the potential catastrophic damage that such pressures could create.

GERD is susceptible to other environmental risks from higher temperatures, which reduce rivers because of increased evaporation. Ethiopia has cited evaporation as one factor that will be mitigated by GERD. The Nile River supplies 90% of Egypt’s water needs, leading to Egypt’s reservations about GERD’s potential interference with the Nile’s flow, reducing this critical resource. However, evaporation from the GERD reservoir’s water is 1.5 km³ annually, while Egypt’s Lake Nasser in its hot desert location loses between 10–16 km³.

Another environmental risk that GERD is susceptible to is droughts, which already has reduced the output of other African hydropower dams, limiting their electricity production. Such effects cause widespread blackouts in areas that source their power from these dams. A current example of this environmental risk is the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River. This dam provides most of Zambia’s and Zimbabwe’s electricity but has not met their energy needs due to a drought-decimated reservoir, whose water flow turns the turbines.

Expanding energy sources safeguard power production

Dependency on GERD or any single energy source is risky. To minimise this risk, Ethiopia’s 2025 National Drought Plan calls for a combination of energy sources that include solar, wind and biogas. With GERD now completed, investment funds must be prioritised to develop these renewable sources, according to the Plan. As one of the Plan’s authors, Ato Kebede Yimam, Director General of Ethiopian Forestry Development, noted, “Ethiopia stands as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate-induced drought, a challenge that has become increasingly devastating.” Climate change will not make GERD imminently obsolete, but it is prudent of Ethiopia to be implementing mitigation efforts.

The critical points:

• The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been launched and is Africa’s biggest hydroelectric plant, the energy exports from which will make Ethiopia East Africa’s energy hub
• The hydroelectric dam’s immense reservoir will also be used in agricultural applications in Ethiopia and neighbouring countries
• The dam’s construction minimises flood damage that may occur through climate change and as defence against climate change-induced droughts. Ethiopia will invest in alternate renewable energies to complement hydropower

Written by In on Africa