The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is under construction. The Government of Ethiopia (GoE) is convinced that the GERD project has huge benefit to all the three riparian countries, namely Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. Egypt and Sudan have concerns on the impacts of the dam upon them. In November 2011, the GoE invited in good faith the two downstream countries to form an International Panel of Experts (IPoE). In May 2013, the IPoE issues its main report containing the main studies which should be conducted in order to ensure what have been declared by the GoE. Currently the three countries have agreed to continue negotiations and perform needed studies to ensure that GERD project aims.
The main objective of this paper is to promote Eastern Nile regional power trade by coordinating the planning and developing of power generation and transmission interconnection across the Eastern Nile countries of Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Installed power plants in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have a capacity of 31 GW, 3 GW, and 1 GW, respectively. GERD project with its installed turbines of 6000 MW could provide an outstanding opportunity for collaboration between the three countries considering the relatively low plant load factor for that project which have been estimated by 30%. During the last two years, Egypt suffers from shortage in power supply especially during daily Summer peak load time due to the increase rate of consumption, and that the Egyptian energy production rely on thermal power plants which presents 90% of energy production. The presented research shows the optimal operation under different expected scenarios for power generation based on seasonal, daily, and hourly power connection. The paper concludes that power trade could be used to build confidence among the three countries around the GERD. The specific objective of that issue is to provide sound assessment of the benefits to the three countries and impacts of the GERD to the two downstream countries. Egypt and Sudan.