ACWA Power signs agreements for Ethiopia power plants

Saudi-based utilities provider, ACWA Power, signed 2 long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) with Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) for 2 solar photovoltaic (PV) projects at 2.526 cents/kWh over 20 years.

ACWA Power won the bid for the 2 PV plants of 125 Megawatt of Alternating Current (MWac) each during the first round of Ethiopia’s solar program organized under the new public-private partnership (PPP) law, and signed a Letter of Intent with the Ministry of Finance and EEP in October 2019.

“We are confident that our expertise will help support the Ethiopian government in achieving its goal of increasing the electricity generation capacity from the current 4,300 Megawatt (MW) to 17,300 MW by 2020,” Paddy Padmanathan, President and CEO of ACWA Power, said.

With a combined capacity of 250 MWac, the PV projects are estimated to power 750,000 homes in Ethiopia and offset 320,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The new plants will be located in Dicheto, in the Afar region, and in Gad, in the Somali region of the country.

“The 250MWac projects are the first of a kind in the Ethiopian utilities landscape and will support the diversification of the energy mix within the country,” Padmanathan added.

ACWA Power was selected as the winning bid out of 12 pre-qualified bidders.