The Current and Future States of Ethiopia’s Energy Sector and Potential for Green Energy: A Comprehensive Study

Abstract

Sub-Saharan nations are facing a lot of challenges for the planning of their future energy sector. Particularly, the rural areas of Sub-Saharan nations bear scarcity of energy access as there is a lack of grid facilities, less financial and technical support, pressure from foreign institutions, excess of energy export etc. Although Ethiopia is growing as a leader of energy sector in Sub-Saharan region, it is also facing numerous problems similar to other African nations. In this paper, authors have conducted a detailed study of Ethiopian power sector. This study includes the complete background and overview of current energy sector in Ethiopia. The key factors which affect the development of energy sector such as international energy export, policy framework, role of government and regulatory framework are also discussed. It is observed that there is a huge renewable energy potential in Ethiopia which is under utilized, and can be used as a major resource for rural energy access. The authors recommend that a new policy framework and subsidies for renewable energy generation, motivational awareness, technical training, improvement in organizational efficiency and managerial skills, arrangement of financial instruments for new projects and easy ICTs based mobile banking programme should be initiated as well as improved to achieve sustainable growth, and 100% energy access by increasing renewable energy production.