Historically, geothermal development begun in the early seventies and continued during the eighties and nineties leading to surface investigations, wells and test drilling in selected sites. The government established the first pilot plant in 1998, the expansion of which begun two years later. Four other sites were licensed for exploration by a private firm. Currently, after hydropower, geothermal is the next optimum resource to be developed. Challenges and weaknesses in developing geothermal project are the large financial requirement, resource and other risks.
The project also faces long gestation period, taking longer maturity period between its inception, study, approval, funding and actual implementation and output distribution. Other factors such as lack of institutional capacity and shortage of professional skills, including scientific, technical, commercial, legal ones seriously affect project implementation. Unforeseen legal and regulatory framework may be detrimental to smooth project operations. During the inception of geothermal project, several unpredictable factors are assumed to hamper the project execution at a later stage.
The preparation of geothermal projects requires deeper knowledge and understanding of the nature and potential of the resources. In this regard, there are opportunities and strengths related to large resource, with considerable detailed investigations and test drillings done or being conducted in Ethiopia. This reflects the strong policy commitment to use the available resource at minimum cost. The availability of renewable energy, electricity and indigenous use of energy, energy security and climate resilience are all positive factors that are supportive of the geothermal sector.
The fact that the sector is open for development by the private sector is very encouraging. Private entrepreneurs may invest and develop the geothermal resources thereby creating employment and income for the youth. In this regard, a comprehensive review of the geothermal sector and design of strategy for development had been conducted.
This strategy leads to the preparation of programs and projects related to the sector, which would be accompanied by the reparation of geothermal legal and regulatory framework and institutions. These institutions guarantee the proper and productive use of geothermal resources of the country in the economic development of the country.
As mentioned earlier, the energy policy of the country allows developing electricity from all indigenous renewable energy including geothermal resources. The policy encourages private sector participations to speed up the development process. As pointed out by S. Kebede, Ethiopia is endowed with high geothermal resources, currently estimated to have a potential of 10, 800 MW. Based on this potential resource, a number of geothermal programs and projects would be initiated in the near future.
These include: (i) geothermal master plan study; (ii) Aluto Langano geothermal expansion project; (iii) surface explorations at Tendaho; (iv) Tendaho shallow resources feasibility study and (v) development of long term geothermal strategy.
In the short term plan, a total of 675 MW geothermal power is to be developed from six selected prospects by 2020 and 2000 MW is expected by 2030. Both the private sector and public sector participation is envisaged to achieve this plan. Financial resources are secured or are in the process of being secured for the planned development of the energy sector.
The energy sector in Ethiopia can be generally categorized in to two major components: (i) traditional (biomass), and (ii) modern (electricity and petroleum). As a large majority of the Ethiopian people are engaged in the small-scale agricultural sector and live in rural areas, they depend on traditional energy sources. It is assumed that the continuous economic growth has undoubtedly influenced the growth of energy demand.
To meet the growing demand for electricity, it is necessary to supply adequate electricity service. The generation capacity will have to increase to meet domestic demand and to export surplus power to neighboring countries and beyond.
All the energy production will focus on renewable energy resources to meet the planned climate resilient green economy of the country. The need to expand the transmission and distribution system is necessary in order to deliver the energy generated to the consumer in an efficient and reliable manner. The Ethiopian government policy direction is to generate virtually all electricity from clean and renewable sources centered on hydropower, with complementary geothermal, wind, solar and other renewable energy resources.
Hydropower generates the largest amount of electricity in Ethiopia. However, as the rainfall in the country considerably varies from year to year, except in the winter season, there is a need to “diversify” the energy sources to ensure a stable supply. Hydropower makes energy supply variable and unstable, resulting in heavy strains on the pace of growth in every sector of the economy. There is, therefore, a need to diversity sources of energy in the country.
The long term geothermal strategy is being implemented with financial assistance for the renewable energy program. The key components of the strategy briefly include generating an overview of Ethiopia’s geothermal sector; performing a detailed assessment of international approaches to development of the geothermal value chain; review priority projects and financial needs; assessing development options with emphasis on stakeholders; identifying capacity requirements and support needed by private sector; and creating an action plan.
It is planned to expand the transmission and distribution system with the objective of delivering energy to producers and consumers in an efficient and reliable manner. The plan further envisages increasing the universal electricity access rate.
The government policy direction is to generate virtually all electricity from clean and renewable sources. However, the current overdependence on hydropower makes energy supply unstable, resulting in heavy strains on the pace of growth in all sectors of the economy. There is, therefore, a need to diversify the sources of energy for ensuring sustainable supply of power that is used as input in all sectors of the economy.
The government’s Energy policy is an integral part of its overall development policy. It aims to facilitate the development of energy resources for economical supply to both producers and consumers. It seeks to achieve the accelerated development of “indigenous” energy resources and the promotion of private investment in the production and supply of energy.
Electricity supply, as an element of the development infrastructure is being advanced in two fronts: the building up of the grid based supply system to reach all administrative and market towns, and rural electrification based on independent, privately owned supply systems in areas where the grid has not reached.
An independent power producer (IPP) may engage in power development for selling the generated electricity to the public utility, known as the single buyer model.
The single buyer model, according to S. Kebede, does not exclude captive geothermal power generation, which is generation for “own use” in primary economic production or service industries owned by the developer. Engineering, procurement and construction turnkey contracts could be negotiated and signed between private companies and the public utility, in which the private sector would have the role of not just as a project developer but also as a critical stakeholder that can bring financing to the table under the right circumstances.
In the past high geothermal areas were located within the Ethiopian Rift System (ERS). The ERS is a zone of particularly active crust thinning and opening. Over the years, an inventory has been built up of the possible resource areas within the ERS. The inventory work in the highland regions of the country is not complete but the rift system has been well covered.
Within the rift system there are independent heating and circulation systems, with a potential for electricity generation. Much larger areas are capable of being developed for non-electricity generation applications such as horticulture, animal breeding, aquaculture, agro-industry, health and recreation, mineral water bottling, mineral extraction, space cooling and heating (UNDP).
The early stages of explorations have identified several areas to have geothermal resources suitable for electricity generation. Since the last two decades, geo-scientific surveys mostly comprising geology, geochemistry, and geophysics, were carried out in a number of areas. Exploration work peaked when drilling was carried out at Aluto. Several exploratory wells were drilled with some of them proving to be productive. Resource utilization was delayed until pilot plant has been installed and studied.
Exploration drilling has also been carried out at several sites. Deep and shallow wells were also drilled and geothermal fluids were encountered in deep ranges. The geothermal resources in Ethiopia are economically viable, due to the following main reasons.
The resources have high reservoir temperatures; the depth of the reservoirs are economical; the resources have low non-condensable gas content; and the geographical location of the resources is very close to existing infrastructures of roads, transmission lines and other factors.
BY GETACHEW MINAS
The Ethiopian Herald April 29/2021
