Ethiopian Energy Systems : Potentials, Opportunities and Sustainable Utilization

Abstract: Ethiopia is a nation endowed with huge amount of water, wind, solar and geothermal energy potentials.However, regardless of its enormous potentials the energy system is highly dependent on traditional fossilfuels and biomass and only about 32% of the nation‟s population has access to electricity. Given this fact,the country has engaged itself in unprecedented multimillion dollar energy projects in recent years.However, some of the projects and the construction of huge dams have raised controversy oversustainability issues. In this thesis work, the potentials and opportunities of the Ethiopian energy systemsand the sustainability of the ongoing and planned energy projects are discussed. Their social,environmental and economic implications are also addressed based on an in depth literature review. Asurvey was also conducted through questionnaire to research people‟s opinion on the current projects andtheir implications and results were interpreted using Web HIPRE software. It is concluded that thesurveyed group, selected and contacted randomly, believe that the economy is the most important aspectfor the country to consider giving it a weight of 43% over the social (29%) and environmental (28%)aspects. The Web HIPRE analysis also showed that respondents support the current hydropower projectson the Gibe River. Different important stakeholder such as farmers, fishermen and other inhabitants of thearea who are directly affected (positively or negatively) by the projects and also people from EEPCo andother concerned bodies such as policy makers are not included in this survey due to communicationproblems to gather data. The inclusion of data from such key stakeholder could have potentially changedthe outcome of the survey. It is also concluded that while there are lots of rooms for improvements on theprojects (prior and post construction), some of the criticisms encircling the project seem to lack allrounded understanding of the social and economic needs of the country as well as the long term ecosystemimplications of the projects. It is also concluded that Ethiopia, if it uses its energy potentials properly,could not only meet its energy demands but also be a giant energy supplier to east African nations in a few years.