Ethiopia suspends Sudan’s power purchase, halves its supply to Djibouti

Ethiopia is suspending the sale of electricity to neighbouring Sudan and reducing power supply to Djibouti, a senior government official has said.

Lack of sufficient water at the dams resulted in a 460 MW power deficit which in turn forced the government to introduce power rationing until 7 July  2019, the Minister of Water, Irrigation, Dr Engineer Seleshi Bekele said during a briefing on Friday, 17 May 2019.

“In order to fill the supply gap, the country also suspended power sale to Sudan while reducing supply to Djibouti by half, he said.

Accordingly, domestic customers have been divided into three categories and each category will get electric power service in shifts for the duration of five hours.

Due to a supply shortage, power rationing will be introduced until 7 July 2019, he said adding in order to fill the supply gap, the country suspended power sale to Sudan while reducing supply to Djibouti by 50 percent.

Food processing, pharmaceutical, export-oriented companies as well as other social service delivering institutions will, however, be exempted from the power cuts.

Since 8 May 2019, domestic consumers have been facing blackouts for several hours each day, while cement and steel firms, as well as businesses all over the country, have been operating fewer hours due to the power cuts.

Currently, Ethiopia gets 90 percent its total electricity from several hydro-power generating plants with a total of installed capacity of almost 3,815 megawatts.

APA