ETHIOPIA: Upgrading Ethiopia’s power grid control system

Ethiopia's electricity sector is experiencing strong growth; Ethiopia increased its generation capacity from 755 MW to 5,200 MW between 2008 and 2023. Ethiopia aims to increase its production capacity to 17,056 MW by 2030.

However, the Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) company is facing power instability, due to the poor quality of communications between power plants and the control center. 

Out of 144 transformer stations, only 95 are connected to the control center. As a result, communication with these sites is still mainly by radio or telephone with mediocre response times, leading to blackouts and major stability problems. 

The aim of this project is to build a new National Load Dispatch Center (NLDC) and a backup replica. This project comprises three components: 

• An infrastructure component comprising the infrastructure and technology necessary for the operation of the dispatching centers;
• The SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system, upgrading the substations and medium-voltage lines in the buildings for the dispatching centers (national control center and emergency center), telecommunications equipment, radio systems and protective equipment;
• A training component providing EEP staff with the specific technical skills necessary for dispatching center operations and maintenance.

The project will:

• Improve the operational management of the power network by enabling automated management of the power grid to improve safety, reliability and performance (notably reducing technical losses).
• Reduce losses by around 300 GWh, corresponding to the electricity needs of almost 1.4 million people.
• Strengthen EEP's technical capabilities in power system management by training 82 operational staff and 57 maintenance staff.
• Reduce the number of load shedding operations and the duration of power outages.
• Increase the available energy, contributing to the economic development of the country by providing a continuous daytime service for (industrial and commercial) and domestic users, and reduce the use of emergency the use of back-up diesel generators.