French engineering company Alstom has secured a $325-million contract to supply turbines and generators to the controversial Grand Millennium dam project, in Ethiopia.

Alstom renewable-power president Jérome Pécresse says the company signed the contract with Metals & Engineering Corporation, the State-owned entity responsible for the electro- mechanical component of the $4.8-billion hydropower project.

The project, which will be the largest hydropower plant in Africa, with capacity to generate 5 250 MW, is being constructed by Italian company Salini Costruttori and is slated for completion in 2015.

“Alstom is willing to play a major role in developing Ethiopia’s energy sector, enabling the country to drastically increase its power production capacity,” he says.

Apart from supplying the turbines and generators, Alstom will supervise the installation of all electromechanical equipment for the plant.

These will include eight 375 MW turbines and eight generators for the first phase. The company will also oversee a programme to develop local skills and know-how in the area of hydroelectricity.

“With the supply of the first high-capacity turbines, this contract strengthens Alstom’s prominent position in the African hydropower market,” notes Pécresse.

He adds that the company, which is involved in several power projects in Africa, already has a presence in Ethiopia, where it is supplying wind turbines for the Ashegoda wind power plant.

The Grand Millennium dam, also known as the Grand Renaissance dam, is being constructed on the Blue Nile and is touted as the solution to Ethiopia’s perennial energy crisis and a critical economic contributor through electricity exports.

Located about 700 km north-west of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, in Benishangul-Gumaz state, the project has generated tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt, while global financial institutions have refused to fund it.

This has forced the Ethiopian government to mobilise domestic resources, including pleading with ordinary citizens to contribute to its construction kitty.

In this way, government had managed to raise about $500- million from civil servants, private-sector employees, students, private businesspeople and Ethiopians in the diaspora by the end of 2012.

Ethiopia believes the project will be critical in addressing its severe energy shortages and in assisting the country to realise its desire to become a major electricity exporter in the region.

Only about 2% of Ethiopia’s 80-million population have access to electricity. Demand for electricity is growing at 10% a year.

The country, with potential hydropower production of 35 000 MW, projects that power exports could rake in $407-million a year.