As Ethiopia inaugurated its popularly elected government on Tuesday, President Sahlework Zewdie and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) have ushered in the beginning of a new chapter in the country. The new beginning is a comprehensive topic that covers the country’s prospect of advancing economically, politically.
Energy is at the center of the overall development of human society elsewhere in the world. As the sources and types of energy are vast and wide-ranging, choosing the safest, affordable, suitable and with economic leverage would be a wise decision in speeding up development.
The impacts of energy decisions are not equal for all people. Poor or marginalized societies are more likely to suffer negative consequences of energy decisions because they have a reduced capacity for adaptation and they may lack negotiating power compared to wealthier societies. Therefore, vulnerable populations can benefit greatly from improvements in energy accessibility, safety, or affordability.
For instance, Ethiopia has rich potential in the development of energy from different sources. For instance, it has a capacity of developing about 60 thousand megawatts of electric power from its rivers, … solar and wind.
So far, the country can develop only some 4,000 mws from hydroelectric sources. There are also attempts to widen the use of solar energy in the country. Yet the country has to do a lot of jobs in the years to come to fully utilize its potential as well as to address the growing need of its people for energy.
Experts argue that energy has both positive and negative impacts on societies. Access to abundant, affordable, secure, safe, and clean energy is beneficial for humans. But energy extraction, transportation, and use can have negative consequences to the health, environment, and economics of a society.
This implies that it is necessary to compare and contrast the strong and weak sides of every energy source to the objective situation of the country taking into consideration factors like the availability of inputs, finance, environmental concern etc.
Energy sources like hydropower plants require a huge sum of finance which is difficult for developing economies like that of Ethiopia. Even large scale wind and solar projects also require a considerable sum of financing that is often too much for these countries to afford.
For instance, despite the large amount of investment it requires, hydroelectric power is the best-recommended source of energy for Ethiopia considering the abundant sources of water available in the country, the efficiency of output as well as relatively small impact on the ecosystem, says Aytenew Kidane, an electrical engineer.
While strongly supporting the development of hydroelectric as the best option for energy, Aytenew further argues that there are other better options for the country to try and develop in the future.
Aytenew himself is working to promote a new fashion of electric power generator that is affordable, off-grid, environmentally friendly and with the possibility of creating jobs for youth and the private sector.
The new technology, called IM Generator is a new movable off-grid hydropower energy-generating material innovated in Spain.
IM generator produces energy using water and salt only, Aytenew added. The generator is manufactured with the latest technology and becomes the best option to develop off-grid energy sources from hydropower.
As to him, the new product aims to fill the gap in energy wastage during power transportation to remote areas from grid hydropower sources. It also cuts infrastructural networking costs to transport energy from the source. He added that the new hydropower generating product can be put in a recent place, even within a building, to produce energy without a long transmission line.
“The generator will be serviced within five years and the water and salt will also change within five years” Aytenew stated. After being serviced and changed within five years, he said, the material will have the capacity of providing sufficient service for about 50 years.
The advantages of the new energy production product from hydro source, according to him are, it has no gas emission to the environment, it works without noise, it uses only renewable sources and used at any place. The running cost of the production compared to other sources is also very small and helps in technology transfer in the hydropower sector, he further added.
“By intruding this affordable and environmentally-friendly innovation to Ethiopia,” the Engineer stated “we aim to create an African hub of the technology here” Currently, the feasibility study of the product in Ethiopia is already concluded and according to the feasibility study, there is high market potential, he stated.
Still, limitations in awareness on the new product, resistance for innovations, energy policy limitation to retail energy product and gaps in entertaining innovations remains the basic challenges, Aytenew underlined adding “we are working to break the challenges and to introduce the new product to the hydropower energy sector in Ethiopia within a short period.”
BY STAFF REPORTER
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD OCTOBER 6/2021
