Energy · Agence Française de Développement (AFD) · 2025
The Substation That Keeps the Grid Standing
Grid reinforcement is one of the least visible investments in Ethiopia's energy transition. We were contracted to make it visible.
AFD
Commissioning client
EEP
Project partner and on-camera voices
Addis
Filmed on site outside Addis Ababa
The challenge
Substation work is technical, unglamorous and easy to reduce to a specification sheet. AFD needed a record of the RISED project that could explain, to partners and to the public, what the investment actually changes — without turning the engineers who deliver it into background scenery.
The approach
- 01
Filmed on site at the RISED substation outside Addis Ababa, working around live operations and EEP safety protocol.
- 02
Interviewed leading Ethiopian Electric Power staff on the project — engineers, control room operators and project management — as the primary voices, not as supporting quotes.
- 03
Documented the control room and field operations directly, so the technical reality of the project carries the story rather than stock footage.
What we produced
- Video production covering the RISED substation site and operations
- Interview series with leading EEP staff working on the project
- Photographic coverage of the substation, control room and project teams
The result
The people who keep the grid standing explain the project in their own words. That is the record AFD now holds.
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