Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

About Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)-

• It is a massive hydropower dam(gravity) built by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, the Nile River’s main tributary.
• The name that the Blue Nile river takes in Ethiopia (“Abay”) is derived from the Ge’ez word for ‘great’ to imply its being ‘the river of rivers’.
• It was formerly known as the Millennium Dam and sometimes referred to as Hidase Dam.
• The primary purpose of the dam is electricity production to relieve Ethiopia’s acute energy shortage and for electricity export to neighboring countries. 
• With a planned installed capacity of 6.45 gigawatts, the dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed, as well as the seventh largest in the world.
• GERD is the source of an almost decade-long diplomatic standoff between Ethiopia and downstream nations Egypt and Sudan.
• The eventual site for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was identified by the United States Bureau of Reclamation in the course of the Blue Nile survey, which was conducted between 1956 and 1964 during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. 
• Due to the coup d’état of 1974, however, the project failed to progress. 
• The Ethiopian Government surveyed the site in October 2009 and August 2010. 
• In November 2010, a design for the dam was submitted by James Kelston and dam has been under construction since 2011.