Every evening in Tum, a remote Ethiopian village near the South Sudanese border, Meskerem Tadesse lights kerosene lamps so that her children could study. The smoke stings their eyes, the smell of kerosene lingers in their small home, and the light is barely enough to read by. Cooking with firewood takes up hours of her day, leaving little time for rest or other activities.
Meskerem’s struggle is far from unique. Across Ethiopia, families and farmers live with daily power shortages. In Arba Minch, farmer Fenta is spending double the amount for the fuel needed to pump water as Lake Abaya recedes. In the Harar region, a primary school of 441 students has computers and audiovisual equipment, but these merely gather dust because the grid is unreliable. Even in the capital, Addis Ababa, blackouts still interrupt daily life for hours.
More than 70 million Ethiopians, or over 50% of the country’s population, still lack reliable electricity. That is the problem the building of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is intended to solve.
Nevertheless, these numbers do not reveal the whole story. Frequent blackouts and weak transmission/distribution are part of daily life. For many regions, several-hour-long power outages have become normal. Even those that last for several days, sometimes up to 10 in a row, are familiar to almost every Ethiopian. In late 2024, Ethiopia’s national electricity grid completely failed, throwing the whole country into complete darkness.
GERD: A dam of superlatives
Launched in September 2025, the GERD is located on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz Region, 20 km east of the Sudanese border. It is Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam, covering about 1,874 km² and storing 74 billion cubic meters of water when full, which is sufficient to fill 12 million 10-storey buildings.
The GERD is a centerpiece of Ethiopia’s ambition to expand its power supply, with plans to increase access to grid electricity to 96% by 2030, up from the current 55%. With an expected annual generation of 15.7 trillion watts per hour, this will not only meet growing domestic demand but also power exports to neighboring markets.
What GERD could change
The GERD is intended to transform Ethiopia’s energy landscape:
More capacity and reach: New high-voltage transmission lines will transmit power from the dam to villages, schools, and factories, extending electricity to rural areas.
Lower costs: Hydropower is cheaper than imported fuel. Ethiopia currently spends US$4.5 billion annually on fuel imports. GERD power will cut the import bill and boost exports.
Climate resilience: The GERD’s massive reservoir, equal to 1.6 years of Blue Nile flow, will help to buffer floods, prevent drought-induced blackouts and seasonal shortages, thus stabilizing supply.
Industry growth and exports: Electricity exports could earn Ethiopia US$0.5 to 1 billion annually, strengthening its foreign exchange position and attracting investment.
Ethiopians self-financed the GERD
Unlike many large African projects, the GERD has been largely self-financed. Ethiopians at home and abroad have bought government bonds, donated their salaries, and invested their personal savings.
The project, which cost an estimated US$4.5 billion, saw men like Abdulhakim Shamsuddin forfeit about 3-4% of his salary over many years to support GERD bonds. Shamsundin, who is now a doctor, has been a contributor since he was 14.
China has also contributed several billion dollars for related infrastructure, but for Ethiopians, this project is their pride and joy as a result of hard work and investment.
Tensions on the Nile
However, beyond Ethiopia’s borders, the dam has stirred fierce debate:
Egypt fears the GERD will reduce Nile flow, especially during droughts, threatening agriculture and drinking water. Cairo is demanding a legally binding agreement to govern how Ethiopia fills and operates the dam, especially during dry years.
Sudan has adopted a mixed stance, seeing both the risks and rewards – flood control, and cheap electricity, but also potential flooding of its own dams if the GERD’s filling schedules are not coordinated. They are demanding transparency and guaranteed water release schedules to avoid harm during drought/flood seasons.
For its part, Ethiopia insists the GERD is a sovereign development project, arguing it will benefit all by regulating flows, controlling floods, and possibly reducing the loss of evaporation from downstream reservoirs.
Environmental concerns
In terms of environmental risk, all three countries, particularly Egypt, could experience reduced water flows during droughts due to the continuous filling of the dam. This could also lead to changes in the water chemistry, which could affect downstream ecology and lead to the loss of biodiversity and a decline in fish catches and livelihoods for fishermen.
Studies also show that sediment yield is high in the Blue Nile and, if not managed well, this could lead to the loss of reservoir capacity, faster aging of turbines, downstream loss of fertile silt, the need for more fertilizers, and erosion and soil degradation in floodplains.
What success looks like
For Ethiopia, the GERD is about more than megawatts. It represents national pride, economic independence, and hope for millions who have been living without light. For the wider Nile basin, the GERD is both a promise of clean energy and a test of regional cooperation.
As a development expert explained:
“Managed wisely, the GERD can be a cornerstone of African growth. Mishandled, it could deepen the rifts in one of the world’s most water-sensitive regions.”
The real measure of success will not be in the transmission lines, but in how many lives are transformed from darkness into light.
