Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) announces that production tests on drilled Aluto Langano Geothermal site has commenced.
The state owned electric power producer revealed that the power export has been cut by half starting from this week to keep sustainable power supply in relation to the two religious festivities.
The Aluto Langano, the only developed geothermal site in Ethiopia, which started its expansion work last May, has so far accomplished the drilling of four wells.
Moges Mekonnen, Public Relation Head at EEP, told Capital that the production tests of the four drilled wells will be commenced and that the testing that will be undertaken on two weeks interval. “The testing period may take three months,” Moges stated.
In total 12 wells will be drilled under the project that will be fully finalized at the end of the coming year. Currently, the fifth well is being drilled and the drilling of the sixth well commences soon. “The drilling work was commenced with delays owing to the water supply not flowing at the expected time which is crucial for the project,” the Public Relation Head explained.
The Kenyan firm, KenGen which has carried out the drilling works using two geothermal drilling rigs has allowed the project to run swiftly.
Located about 145km south of Addis Ababa on the Aluto volcanic complex in the main Ethiopian Rift Valley, Aluto-Langano is the only producing geothermal field in Ethiopia and experts express that it is probably the best studied prospect in the Ethiopian Rift. Geoscientific exploration began in 1973 and led to the siting of an exploration well LA3 on top of the volcanic complex.
The well was drilled in 1983 to a depth of 2, 144 meter. Since 1990, Aluto had produced electricity which has now been interrupted in connection with the expansion project.
The undergoing expansion that consumes USD 218 million with the major share being covered by the World Bank of IDA support through ‘Geothermal Sector Development Project’ plans to generate about 70 MW.
In related development, EEP disclosed that the power supply to Djibouti and Sudan has dropped by half starting from this week.
Moges said that EEP, which is responsible to generate and transport power up to the substation besides manage the energy export, to keep the local sustainable power supply in these holiday season has cut the export by half.
He said that the power supply to the two neighbors will continue after the end of the holidays.
He reminded that the peak hour for electric demand used to start at 6 pm, “however since the Ramadan season started the peak hour has come up to 3 pm.”
“Taking the growing power demand to consideration EEP has been undertaking massive preparation for the fasting season and two Christian and Muslim holidays to provided sustainable power,” he explained.
“As per the preparation, the team has been formed, and each unit at the generation plants, sub stations and transmission lines have been tested and made ready,” he added.
Optical fiber cables have also been tested.
A standby team has been formed and dispatched at stations and technical facilities to handle any interruption when it occurs.
“Grid stability stations like Gibe III and Tana Beles have also been specially tested since they are vital for restoration if any interruption occurred,” he said, adding, “as per our experience in similar holiday seasons in the past years, the power demand is from 2,500 to 2,600 MW but now me have made available up to 2,800 MW of power to mitigate the sudden demand.”
Besides the 2,800 MW ranges, EEP has provided a standby reserve if any additional demand shall be needed.
Since EEP is responsible to produce and provide electricity up to distribution stations; it has disclosed that it is working with Ethiopian Electric Service, energy retailer, to ensure sustainable power supply for the two holidays.
Production tests kick start at Aluto Langano
Technology theft in the global economy
Noted political analysts asserted that Chinese-Russian military and geopolitical cooperation is flourishing for now. And that has the United States worried. However, if the weapons industry is anything to go by, a fraying at the edges of close ties between the two Asian powers may be on the horizon. To be sure, Russia remains by far China’s foremost arms supplier. But that doesn’t keep China from stealing Russian military technology, much like it allegedly does in the West.
So far, according to James Dorsey, an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore Russia, has been willing to look the other way. Equipped with a notoriously weak economy and a political regime that is desperately in need of the revenues of weapons sales, Russia had no real alternative option. Military sales undergird Russia’s geopolitical heft.
The question is for how long Russia can afford this benign, acquiescent attitude and look the other way when China steals military technology. By the same token, viewed in a broader strategic context, this is also a question that applies to various other opportunistic alliances. This notably includes the relationship between Russia, Turkey and Iran.
James Dorsey stated that what these relationships, often concluded to stand up to the United States, have in common is that they are driven by short-term interests. First and foremost, they reflect a desire to institutionalize a multipolar world in which United States power is counterbalanced by others. These alliances, adopting pragmatic approaches, have so far worked by focusing on immediate interests, while carefully managing significant differences. Those differences, nonetheless, surface regularly. Recently, alleged Chinese intellectual property theft as well as diametrically opposed Turkish, Russian and Iranian policies towards conflicts in Syria and/or Libya that have figured prominently in media reports.
This month, “Rostec”, the Russian State defense conglomerate, gave a rare public display of friction between Russia and China. It echoed long-standing United States allegations of Chinese technology theft and accused China of illegally copying Russian military hardware and weapons.
Yevgeny Livadny, Rostec’s Chief of Intellectual Property Projects, said: “Unauthorized copying of our equipment abroad is a huge problem. There have been 500 such cases over the past 17 years. China alone has copied aircraft engines, Sukhoi planes, deck jets, air defense systems, portable air defense missiles and analogues of the Pantsir medium-range surface-to-air systems”. It was clear that Mr. Yevgeny Livadny appeared to be referring among other things to alleged Chinese intellectual property theft after Russia sold to China in 2015 six S-400 anti-aircraft systems and 24 Su-35 fighter jets for 5 billion dollar.
Branko Milanovic, the Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York stated that China is thought to have benefitted from Russian technology when it in 2017 rolled out its fifth generation Chengdu J-20 fighter that is believed to be technologically superior to Russia’s SU-57E. Similarly, China is suspected of having based its J-11 fighter jet and HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Russia’s Su-27 fighter jets and S-300 missile systems purchased in the 1990s. Chinese technology theft is unlikely to persuade Russia any time soon to forego the strategic advantages of its geopolitical cooperation with China.
Russia needs to assert itself at some point
Branko Milanovic noted that with China’s defense industry significantly improving its technological capabilities, Russia needs to ensure that it remains crucial to the People’s Republic’s military development for economic reasons as well as in a bid to maintain a strategic balance in an alliance that is based on pursuing short-term common interests while kicking potential friction points down the road. When it comes to arms, Russia’s preferred strategy is to try pressuring China to engage in joint weapons development, while seeking to maintain a technological edge for itself.
According to Branko Milanovic, this was evident just recently, when Russia sought to press its technological advantage by announcing that its new Avangard Hypersonic Intercontinental Glide Vehicle that can fly 27 times the speed of sound had become operational. Positioning Russia as the first country to have hypersonic weapons, the Avangard is launched atop an intercontinental ballistic missile. However, unlike a regular missile warhead that follows a predictable path after separation, it can make sharp manoeuvres in the atmosphere en route to target, making it much harder to intercept.
In geopolitical terms, the Avangard missile may give Russia a first-starter advantage but at best is yet another band aid to work around the fragility of not only the Russian Chinese alliance, but also alliances like that of Turkey with Russia and with Iran.
Uwe Bott, Senior Defense and Economic analyst noted that the fragility of those alliances is evident in Turkish and Russian attempts to balance their competing interests in Syria and Libya. Turkey has criticized the ongoing Syrian-Russian assault on Idlib, the last Syrian rebel stronghold, and called for an immediate ceasefire.
According to Uwe Bott, Turkey and Russia are also at odds when it comes to Russian interference in Ukraine, the exploitation of natural gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict in the Caucasus over Nagorno-Karabagh and they compete for influence in the Balkans and Central Asia. To be sure, Turkey’s and Russia’s presidents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, respectively, envision a Turkish and a Russian world that serve as spheres of influence. These are not only bound to clash but clash already.
