Ethiopia's Ambitious Goal To Go Green

MEKELLE — Kindeya Redaie has no electricity in his house, but he bought two steers with the money the state gave him in exchange for the right to put a wind turbine on his land. "I would have preferred keeping my field, but I'm proud to live where the country's first wind turbine was set up," the farmer says as he gazes up at the huge white blades above his head.

On the Tigray region plateau, in northern Ethiopia, 70-meter-high masts — 84 of them — stand amid a landscape where the dry and stony soil is still turned over with a plow. The Ashegoda Wind Farm, built by the French companies Vergnet and Alstom, is a "clean" development in one of the world's poorest nations.

In its quest to be regarded as an emerging country, Ethiopia has set itself the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It's a huge ambition for the country of almost 100 million people, where the economy has been growing by 10% a year for more than a decade. It's a goal that makes the country a model six months ahead of December's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, which will aim to ratify a universal agreement to limit the rise in temperatures to 2°C.

Hydroelectric monster

Like the vast majority of Ethiopians, Redaie must still settle for charcoal and "cow wood" (dried cowpat) when he wants to cook his meals or have warm water. The power produced by the Ashegoda complex, which runs along underground cables before reaching the national network's high voltage lines, is still too expensive for him.

A woman working at the Ashegoda Wind Power Project substation — Photo: Lijing/Xinhua/ZUMA

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