The French Development Agency (AFD) has approved a €8 million ($9 million) grant that will be directed towards the development of the Tendaho geothermal project.
It is funded by the European Union, through the European Union Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund (EU-AITF).
According to the Addis Standard, this investment grant constitutes an additional funding to this project, which already benefited from a €9 million ($10 million) concessional loan from AFD and a total of €7,5 million ($8 million) from previous EU-AITF grants.
The financing will enable to complete the drilling activities planned as part of the geothermal exploration and development effort in the Afar region. Read more: Global geothermal power capacity snapshot for 2017
A signing ceremony of the grant agreement took place at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation between Admasu Nebebe, Ethiopian State Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Frederic Bontems, Ambassador of France to Ethiopia and Ignace Monkam-Daverat, the AFD regional manager in Addis Ababa.
Tendaho geothermal project
The geothermal project is being implemented by Ethiopian Electric Power, in coordination with Geological Survey of Ethiopia.
It aims to support Ethiopian economic growth by developing geothermal energy, a source that is reliable and low carbon, and thereby to improve its capacity for climate change adaptation.
The activities will focus on developing a shallow reservoir in Tendaho in order to allow a sustainable exploitation with a capacity of an estimated 10MW, and on exploiting a deep reservoir by drilling wells at great depth.
