Because of conflicts and their consequences, which continue to this day, people in Lalibela have been receiving a very small amount of water for their daily consumption. Their lives have been disrupted. Once the project is completed, the volume of water they get will increase dramatically.
The population already started benefiting from the project. At the initial stage, the ICRC intervened in July 2022, shortly before the end of hostilities in northern Ethiopia conflict. At that time, the power station in Alamata was damaged due to the conflict, so the power coming to Lalibela was interrupted. Power was out for almost two years! So, we solarized one borehole as an emergency response. This was the first phase of the project, which helped the people in Lalibela to get at least some amount of water during that difficult time.
After assessing the very critical water shortage for the community of Lalibela, the ICRC designed a second phase of the project. It aims at providing solar power to three pumping stations. All the electrical and electromechanical components will be renewed, and all the pumps will be replaced by brand new pumps. These three pumping stations will be purely operated with solar power. To avoid any outage, the system will operate with two other sources: grid power when available, and generator power. We also work on the boreholes themselves, which are the source of the water. When this second phase is completed, a total of three boreholes will be solarized. The final system will operate with solar power during daytime, and with grid or generator during nighttime.
In addition to the population of Lalibela, the town’s Water Utility will benefit greatly from the project. They have been paying a very big amount of money for electric utilities to operate the pumps with grid power, even if it worked only intermittently. They will be relieved when the solar power starts to pump water, reducing this electric fee cost by more than half.
Indirectly, the project has a great deal of benefits for the town’s tourism as well. There are many hotels in Lalibela, who will benefit from the continuous water supply for their visitors. Hoping the current conflict eases down and security improves, this will uplift Lalibela’s economy and create job opportunities for the youth and other people in the town.
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