The Ethiopian Ministry of Finance has launched a tender for six large-scale solar projects in the regions of Afar, Somali, Oromia and Tigray. Expected to have a total combined capacity of 798 MW, the projects will require around US$795m in investment and will be built under the framework of a public-private partnership.
This is Ethiopia's third tender for large-scale solar projects and may be an expansion of the 500 MW solar plan the government is developing under the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Scaling Solar programme, under which the IFC is organising reverse solar auctions and providing guarantees for potential investors.
The country's previous tenders were issued by state-run power company Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) and were part of this Scaling Solar scheme. The first solar tender for the construction of a 100 MW solar plant in Metehara (Oromia) (scheduled for commissioning in 2019) was won by the Italian power company Enel in partnership with the Ethiopian infrastructure company Orchid Business Group in October 2017. The second was issued in October 2017 as well and intended the construction of two 125 MWac solar parks. 12 developers were pre-selected in March 2018.
Ethiopia aims to reach 300 MW of solar power capacity by 2020.
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