Energy in Ethiopia
Energy in Ethiopia includes
Ethiopia's energy sector is crucial for its development, with wood being a primary energy source, leading to deforestation challenges. The country aims to address economic development and poverty by transitioning to alternative sources, particularly electricity.
Overview
The following table provides some of the most relevant energy sector numbers for Ethiopia, a
Energy in Ethiopia[1] | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Primary energy (PE) | Secondary energy (SE) | ||||||||
Population | TPES | PE per person |
PE production |
PE from imports |
SE from imports |
Electricity generation (EG) |
EG/TPES*100 | CO2-emission | |
Million | TWh | MWh | TWh | TWh | TWh | TWh | % | Mt | |
2004 | 74.5 | 418 | 5.6 | 400 | 0 | 16.4 | 2.54 | 0.61 | 4.8 |
2007 | 80.9 | 456 | 5.6 | 435 | 0 | 23.3 | 3.55 | 0.78 | 5.39 |
2010 | 87.6 | 496 | 5.7 | 473 | 0.2 | 26.0 | 4.98 | 1.00 | 5.96 |
2013 | 94.6 | 546 | 5.8 | 515 | 2.1 | 34.0 | 8.72 | 1.60 | 8.50 |
2014 | 97.0 | 563 | 5.8 | 529 | 2.3 | 37.3 | 9.62 | 1.71 | 9.13 |
Change 2004–2013 | 27% | 31% | 3.5% | 29% | — | 107% | 243% | 180% | 77% |
|
- PE: Ethiopia did not export PE in the years shown.
- PE: all PE imports were bituminous materials (natural asphalt used as engineering material for the construction of roads).
- SE: Ethiopia did export electricity, a single-digit percentage of the generated electricity, the annual amount is not shown in the table.
- SE: SE imports are refined oil products only.
- SE: In 2014, SE imports were mainly gasoline (2.7 TWh), kerosene (8,7 TWh) and diesel (20.1 TWh).
Primary energy sector
Primary energy is produced through the consumption of natural resources, renewable and nonrenewable.
Primary energy use
All imported primary energy sources are natural asphalt. That material is exclusively used for roads construction but is not used to produce primary energy (heat/enthalpy).
Therefore, Ethiopia produces its primary energy exclusively from inland resources. These inland resources are almost entirely traditional renewables from biomass and biofuels (like wood) and wastes.[1] A common type of renewable biofuel is wood for heating or cooking in households, a type of resource, that is increasingly overused and overconsumed due to the Ethiopian population growth. Current natural reproduction of wood does not cover the annual use of 37 million tonnes of wood, 50% of the Ethiopian wood reserves of 1,120 million tonnes are exploited.[2][3] Consequently, deforestation is a common problem in Ethiopia with all of its negative implications. Due to the population growth, energy demand is increasing, which is increasingly (due to the stressed primary energy sources) covered by secondary energy imports, see the table.
Nevertheless, the use of primary energy is also increasing. In part this is due to a more efficient use of agricultural wastes. Ethiopia has agricultural wastes "reserves" of 38 million tonnes per annum, but in 2011 only 6 million tonnes of them were used.[2][3] This changes now. Such wastes can be used in households or in industrial processes, for example in thermal processing.
Beyond the renewables, Ethiopia also has resources of nonrenewable primary energies (oil, natural gas, coal), but it does not exploit them. It also does not export them.
Energy reserves
Solid and liquid fuels
Ethiopia currently relies much on its reserves of wood for energy generation, see the table. Ethiopia in 2013 had 1,120 million tonnes of exploitable wood reserves.[2]
Ethiopia also has liquid and solid
Coal
While coal reserves in Ethiopia are estimated to be at 300 million tons nationally.[5] 2020/2021 production reached 500,000 tons. Additionnaly, the country spends $200 million annually to import 670,000 tons, mainly from South Africa. Cement, textile, marble and ceramic factories are among the largest users of coal. There are ongoing plans to improve the coal
Natural gas
Transport of primary energy sources
Road transport
The currently used biomass / biofuels for primary energy production in most cases do not need to be transported over more than local distances. This can be done by simple roads. The reason is simple: Ethiopia was (and still is to some extent) a subsistence economy, where the vast majority of goods is produced and consumed locally within a few kilometers around the home of people.
Pipelines
A pipeline will be built to transport natural gas from the Calub and Hilala gas fields to a
Secondary energy sector
Overview
Secondary energy is produced by the consumption of secondary energy sources, more often called energy carriers. It is official policy worldwide and also in Ethiopia to replace primary energy through secondary energy and energy carriers are the vehicles to store this secondary energy. By doing so, the need to use primary energy for energy production in daily life will be replaced by the need to use energy carriers for energy production. This will relieve some pressure from the sources of primary energy in Ethiopia (wood, forests) and will also prevent the country from using its own domestic and nonrenewable primary energy such as coal and oil shales.
Energy carriers are obtained through a man-made conversion process from primary energy sources. Most suitable for the production of energy carriers are abundant and renewable primary energy sources (like sun, water, wind, etc.) while the use of precious and limited nonrenewable sources like oil is usually avoided as much as possible. A direct use of such abundant renewable primary energy sources (sun, water, etc...) is often not possible in technical processes, so it is more feasible to produce energy carriers to store and to transport energy that can later be consumed as secondary energy.
The three main energy carriers in Ethiopia are
Refined oil products
Diesel fuel is the main refined oil product in Ethiopia. It has a share of 20.1 TWh on the total of 37.3 TWh for refined oil products. Diesel is used for thermal power plants (oil power plant) and for private and public diesel generators in parts of the country, where electrical power from the national grid is an issue. Diesel fuel is the main fuel for trucking. As Ethiopia is leaving the state of a subsistence economy, the demand for the transportation of goods is quickly increasing. In 2017, there is no operational railway in Ethiopia, so the transportation of goods needs trucks and roads. Gasoline, to be used in cars, is only 13% (2.7 TWh) of the value for diesel.[1]
More important than gasoline but not as important as diesel is kerosene with 8.8 TWh.
Bioethanol
Bioethanol is produced in currently ~6 sugar factories in Ethiopia (planned are 12 with bioethanol production facilities in 2020), where
In 2017, the annual bioethanol production capacity was at 103,000 m3. Together with planned capacities, the total production capacity in 2020 would amount to almost 300,000m3 per annum.
After blending the gasoline, around 60–70 % of the ethanol is left over, this fuel goes into modern
Electricity
Electricity production potential
The country focuses on the production of electricity from a mix of cheap and clean renewable primary energy sources like hydropower or wind power. Ethiopia has a total identified economically feasible potential of 45 GW of hydropower and 1,350 GW of wind power.[2][10] The identified economically feasible potential from photovoltaics amounts to 5.2 GW while that from geothermal energies amounts to ~7 GW.[2][11] Ethiopia plans to exploit these resources.
For a moderate average capacity factor of 0.4, that would mean a total electricity production potential of around 4,900 TWh, ~9 times the total primary energy the country did consume in 2014. As is obvious from such numbers, the country could replace most of its primary energy use through the use of electricity. More than that, the country could become a major exporter of electricity. It is an expressed wish of the Ethiopian government to become a world class exporter of large amounts of clean, cheap renewable energies in the future. However, going from 1% in 2010 to 4% in 2016 to 100% or even 900% in the (far) future is a long way to go.
In 2014, the country had an annual electricity production of 9,5 TWh. With this, Ethiopia was at position 101 and with an installed electricity generation capacity of 2.4 GW at the position 104 worldwide according to the
In 2010, electricity production made up only ~1 % of Ethiopia's primary energy. Between 2010 and 2016, the production of electricity went up from around ~5 TWh to around ~22 TWh (around 4% of the primary energy value). This was due to an ambitious program to build
Transport of electricity is done through electricity containers, such as
In Ethiopia, the total demand for electrical power is increasing by ~30 % annually.
Electricity generation
In contrast to the primary energy sector, many sources of energy for the secondary energy sector are present both as renewable energies and in an abundant form. In total, Ethiopia has very good conditions for generating electricity through hydropower, wind power and geothermal power, all of them characterized by a very low CO2-emission. The levelized cost of electricity in recent years became somewhat favorable for these clean ways to generate electricity.
Constructing power stations is of high priority in Ethiopian politics. The country is permanently increasing its number of power stations with an increasing number in operation and under construction. The number of power stations in the planning stage is even larger. Ethiopia fully focuses on renewable energies, mainly from hydropower and wind power, to increase its installed electricity production capacity.
Hydropower
The levelized cost of electricity is often considered to be lowest for hydropower if compared to other possible types of electricity generation. In addition, hydropower is by far the most favorable way of producing electricity when looking at the
On the other hand, Ethiopia is often affected by droughts. Ethiopia is one of the most-drought prone countries in the world.[16][17] Hydropower projects (dams) help set up irrigation projects in certain parts of Ethiopia while buffering the impact of droughts. It is official policy to fully utilize hydropower in Ethiopia in combination with irrigation, so the double-positive effect of getting both cheap energy and sufficient water explains the focus on hydropower projects.
Ethiopia in 2013 assumed a total economically feasible potential of 45 GW of hydropower.[2] For a decent capacity factor of 0.4, one could expect an electrical energy generation of 158 TWh per annum in case of full exploitation of the feasible potential, which fits the expected numbers put forward by the Ethiopian Ministry of Water and Energy.[3] 8.5% of the 45 GW of assumed hydrowoper potential of Ethiopia was exploited in 2017, the additional irrigation area gained through these hydropower installations is unknown outside Ethiopia.
Only 28% of the installed power is located in river basins (
One example for this discouraging effect is the Chemoga Yeda-project, that, according to Ethiopian voices, was considered to affect less than 1% of the water system of the Blue Nile. This project in 2011 had secured external financing and was considered under construction already, when it received an Egyptian veto under international law. The project lost its financing.[18] In 2015, another attempt was started to finance the project, the outcome has not been reported to the media. In 2011, another project was started in the Blue Nile basin, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).[19] This project was also vetoed by Egypt, but Ethiopia this time made it a national project and started the project without external financing (except from the Ethiopian Diaspora). GERD will add 6.45 GW of installed power but comes without irrigation. Nonetheless, in 2013 Egypt issued harsh statements just short of war threatening, seeing the River Nile as its sole lifeline in danger.[20] The Blue Nile River supplies 85% of the water entering Egypt.[19]
The large
Wind power
The Ethiopian government increasingly focuses on
Wind power is ideally suited to complement hydro power. Oversimplified is wind power available in Ethiopia in times of water shortages, while abundant water is present when no wind is blowing. During the Ethiopian dry seasons, steady trade winds are blowing all over the country while it is dry. During the summer wet season, the wet monsoon dominates in Western Ethiopia with plenty of water available, while winds are rather weak over most of Ethiopia.
Almost 80% of the identified favorable sites for wind power development are within the Somali Region of Ethiopia, most of it which would require long transmission lines to the Ethiopian cities. The remaining ~300 GW are more evenly distributed across Ethiopia (1,000 TWh per annum for a capacity factor of 0.4). This potential is still much bigger than that from hydropower.
Solar energy
Predicted by Swanson's law, the levelized costs for photovoltaics have plunged to levels just above that of hydropower and wind power. Ethiopia aims to diversify its electricity generation capabilities by investing into an energy mix, of which photovoltaics will be a part.[11]
There are excellent conditions to use solar energy in Ethiopia, in particular in
Solar thermal energy does not play any role in Ethiopia's energy mix considerations. The expected levelized costs of solar thermal installations is quite high. A possible exception is to make use of cogeneration, like the use of solar pond technologies for salt ponds at sites like Dallol, where in 2017 a potash project is under development.
Geothermal energy
Possibly exploitable are around 1,000 GW–7,000 GW from geothermal energy, as the East African Rift runs through Ethiopia with a number of hot spots for energy generation from geothermal energy.[2] It is planned to develop 570 MW of geothermal energy at two different sites within the Great Rift Valley, Ethiopia.[23] Given a capacity factor of 0.8 that would make 4 TWh annually.
In exploiting geothermal energies, Ethiopia is piloting a way that was previously unknown to this country in the energy sector (which is otherwise entirely owned by the state):
Cogeneration
By using
Other thermal power stations
Besides the cogeneration facilities, a single waste-to-energy project (renewable energy) is running in Ethiopia. Also a number of diesel power plants exist (nonrenewable fuel) to make electric power available, when no generation capacities from renewable and abundant energy sources are available for some reason.
Transport of energy carriers
Electricity, refined oil products and bioethanol transport and distribution.
Power transmission lines and electrification
In communities without power and without power transmission lines, is there no electrification? In Ethiopia that is not entirely true. The Ethiopian government bought around 40,000
This distribution of SHS was deemed necessary, as only 56% of Ethiopias population had access to the electric grid in 2017. Most of the 35% rural population of Ethiopia is not connected to the grid. Also affected by off-grid conditions in 2017 is a substantial part of the urban population.[23]
That does not necessarily mean, that the urban population with nominal access to the electric grid was better off. Due to a quickly increasing demand of electric power of ~30 % per annum it came to a lot of power outages in 2016 and 2017, there was a lack of grid stability.[14] In particular most of the existing substations were running above their nominal capacity, while the capacity of standard voltage transmission lines (the last mile) was exceeded, too. Urban households were experiencing frequent outages lasting over days.[15] Companies on the other hand were affected by energy rationing. To work around these outages, shortages and the rationing, some companies started to build their own substations to become independent from the public ones after which they enjoyed a more stable access to the grid with a higher allowed energy consumption.[26] As a consequence of the shortages, Ethiopia in 2017 and 2018 invested a lot in new substations and standard voltage transmission lines with the promise, that at least the main urban centers and industrial parks would see a more stable electricity supply in 2018.[14]
The least concern is given for the backbone of the electric grid. Ethiopia steadily invests in high voltage transmission lines (130 kV ac, 230 kV ac; 400 kV ac). For large energy exports to the wider East African area, Ethiopia and Kenya are now building a 500 kV HVDC line over 1045 km length, that is expected to carry 2 GW.[27] In the long term, Ethiopia eyes HVDC lines to Egypt and to Europe.[14]
Roads and rail
There is a strongly growing need for refined oil imports (diesel, gasoline and kerosene) to the Ethiopian metropolitan areas (SE imports, see the table above). This demand was covered in 2016 and 2017 by ~500 tank trucks daily leaving the Port of Djibouti towards Ethiopia.[28] Plans to substitute the truck transport by 110 tank waggons on the newly built Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway didn't arrive in reality in 2017. Also transported by road is bioethanol. The bioethanol production plants have road access but are usually located in remote areas so that tank trucks need to be used.
Pipelines
A multi-fuel pipeline is currently (2017) being built until 2019 over 500 km–600 km from Djibouti to Central Ethiopia (Awash), where a storage facility exists. This multi-fuel Horn of Africa Pipeline (HOAP) will transport all sorts of refined oil products.[28]
See also
- List of power stations in Ethiopia
- Deforestation in Ethiopia
- Renewable energy in Ethiopia
- Dams and reservoirs in Ethiopia
- Project Gaia
- Ogaden Basin
References
- ^ a b c d e IEA Key World Energy Statistics 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2014 IEA
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Ethiopia's Renewable Energy Power Potential and Development Opportunities" (PDF). Ministry of Water and Energy. 2013-06-13. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
- ^ a b c d "Water and Energy Resource Potential of Ethiopia – Status of Development and Investment Opportunities" (PDF). Ministry of Water and Energy. 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2017-08-15.
- ^ "Ethiopia suspends $500 million mining project". Nazret / Addis Fortune. 2006-09-18. Archived from the original on 2020-05-14. Retrieved 2017-08-15.
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- ^ Ashenafi Endale, Can Ethiopia's coal bonanza substitute imports' (Ethiopian business review), 2021). https://ethiopianbusinessreview.net/can-ethiopias-coal-bonanza-substitute-imports/
- ^ a b "China moves on $4 bln Ethiopian export project". Interfax Energy. 2016-04-13. Retrieved 2017-08-15.
- ^ "Ethiopian makes room for more flowers". HORTIbiz. 2017-04-07. Retrieved 2017-08-20.
- ^ a b "Ethiopian sugar factories". Ethiopian Sugar Corporation. 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-08-22. Retrieved 2017-08-21.
- ^ "Ethiopia". International Hydropower Association. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
- ^ a b c "Solar PV in Ethiopia: A state of flux". PV Magazine. 2016-10-20. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
- ^ "The World Factbook". CIA. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
- ^ "The Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) [Draft]" (PDF). Africa Intelligence. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
- ^ a b c d e "Power Play". Capital Ethiopia. 2017-01-02. Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
- ^ a b "Ethiopia off the Grid". Addis Fortune. 2017-04-09. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
- ISSN 1756-8692.
- ^ "The Most Drought Prone Countries in the World". WorldAtlas. 23 March 2018. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
- ^ "EEPCo in search of finance for Chemoga-Yeda". Capital Ethiopia. 2012-10-22. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
- ^ a b Lazarus, Sarah (October 21, 2018). "Is Ethiopia taking control of the River Nile?". CNN. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
- ^ "Egyptian warning over Ethiopia Nile dam". BBC News. 10 June 2013. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
- ^ "Dam on Ethiopia's Omo River Causing Hunger and Conflict". National Geographic Society Newsroom. 2015-12-02. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
- ^ a b c "Ethiopia's first 100 MW auction to conclude in June; scaling solar tender to follow in the summer". PV Magazine. 2017-06-17. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
- ^ "Corbetti Geothermal to take off". The Reporter. 2017-08-12. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
- ^ "Chinese Solar Home Systems to Light Up Rural Ethiopia". Walta Info. 2015-01-06. Archived from the original on 2016-10-12. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
- ^ "Privately owned substation to come from steel company". Capital Ethiopia. 2017-04-05. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
- ^ "Ethiopia, Kenya working on 500-Kilovolt power line". Fan ABC. 2017-08-05. Retrieved 2017-08-12.
- ^ a b "Horn of Africa Pipeline, Ethiopia". Hydrocarbons Technology. 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-15.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division.