Ethiopia To Launch Tenders For 798 MW Solar

• The Ministry of Finance in Ethiopia has announced the country will launch solar power projects with 798 MW of total capacity
• This capacity will be competitively awarded and will come up as 6 solar power projects
• The 2 solar power projects with 125 MW capacity each initiated under the World Bank's Scaling Solar program will be located in Afar and Somali states of the country

Ethiopia's Ministry of Finance (MOF) will be launching a tender for 798 MW of solar power projects to be installed for an estimated $795 million. The capacity will be divided into 6 solar power projects. No timeline was given.

The ministry, headed by Dr Teshome Tafos, said the projects will be implemented on a public private partnership basis. Local news portal The Reporter Ethiopia says out of the 16 major solar and hydro power plant projects identified for implementation under the country's newly instituted PPP framework 6 projects have reached the request for proposal (RFS) and request for qualification (RFQ) stages.

Before the PPP framework came into force, the government had initiated 2 solar projects as part of the World Bank's Scaling Solar program. These will be located in the states of Afar and Somali.

Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) qualified 12 bidders for the 250 MW solar tender under Scaling Solar out of 28 applicants in March 2018, including ACWA Power, Enel, Mitsui and Scatec Solar among others competing to win rights to develop 2 PV projects of 125 MW each (see 12 Pre-Qualified For Ethiopia Tender).

The World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) will help Ethiopia to add up to 700 MW of solar  under Scaling Solar program.

In October 2017, Enel Green Power along with local Ethiopian infrastructure company Orchid Business Group won rights to develop a 100 MW solar power project in an auction conducted by the EEP. The 100 MW Metehara Solar Power Project is scheduled to come online in 2019.

Ethiopia's Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP 2) of 2016 targeted 17,208 MW of total power generating capacity to be achieved by 2019-20. Out of this, it originally planned to add 300 MW solar while the bulk of it, over 13 GW, was supposed come from hydropower. With solar's cost coming down dramatically, the focus has shifted towards solar in the meantime. In 2014-15, Ethiopia's total power generation capacity was 4,180 MW.