Brussels 11.09.2025 Ethiopia inaugurated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a gigantic hydroelectric hydropower plant on the Blue Nile, near the border with Sudan. This monumental project, valued at some $5 billion, will have the capacity to generate up to 5,150 megawatts of electricity, enough to double the country’s current production.

With a storage capacity of nearly 74 billion m3, the Nigat reservoir is emerging as a key producer in Ethiopia’s electricity in pursuit of its goal of becoming a regional exporter of energy.

Ethiopia 🇪🇹 officially inaugurates Africa's largest hydroelectric dam. pic.twitter.com/RUnII3LlNX

— Typical African (@Joe__Bassey) September 9, 2025

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Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has hailed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as a “shared opportunity” for the region that is expected to generate more than 5,000 megaWatts of power and allow surplus electricity to be exported.

The high profile guests, including some regional leaders – Kenya’s President William Ruto and Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, – attended the festivities in person on September 9, which started the night before with lantern displays and drones writing slogans such as “geopolitical rise” and “a leap into the future”.

However Sudan and Egypt have expressed fears that the dam will threaten their water security and breach international law. Their leaders did not attend the inauguration of the dam.

“I understand their worries, because of course, if you look at Egypt from the sky, you see that the street of life is existent” thanks to the Nile, Pietro Salini, the CEO of Italian company Webuild that constructed the dam, but “regulating the water from this dam will create an additional benefit” to neighbours, he added.

The Blue Nile, one of the Nile’s two main tributaries, flows north into Sudan and then Egypt. The dam is located just 14km (9 miles) east of the Sudanese border, measuring 1.8km (1.1 miles) wide and 145 metres (0.1 mile) tall.

gypt on Tuesday said it has submitted a letter to the UN Security Council warning against Ethiopia’s unilateral operation of its new Nile dam, describing the move as a “breach” of international law.

In the letter, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty wrote Addis Ababa’s inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was “an unlawful unilateral act” that has no grounds to be legitimized.

“Any misconceptions that Cairo would turn a blind eye to its existential interests in the Nile are pure delusions,” the letter reads, stressing that Egypt “will not allow Ethiopia to impose unilateral control over shared water resources.”

Cairo said it reserves the right to take all measures permitted under international law and the UN Charter “to defend the existential interests of its people.”

The ministry said that while Egypt has exercised maximum restraint and chosen diplomacy over confrontation, Ethiopia has “pursued intransigent positions, stalled negotiations, and sought to impose a fait accompli.”

The Addis Ababa’s recent steps represented “a new violation that adds to a long list of breaches of international law, including the Security Council’s presidential statement of Sepember 15, 2021” the letter concludes.

There was no immediate comment from Ethiopia on the Egyptian statement.