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= Renewable Energy in Ethiopia = Through their ambitious three-stage Growth and Transformation Plan, Ethiopia seeks to transform itself into a modern economy by 2025. According to the Ministry of Water and Energy, as of 2018, only 23%of the national populace has access to grid electricity. That figure falls even further to 10% when moving to rural areas – a figure that’s smaller than the 17% average found across the rest of Africa. Drought frequency, flooding, poor land management techniques, and a rapidly growing population all have increased the situations direness.

Hydroelectric:
Ethiopia gets most of its non-biomass genrated electricity supply from hydroelectric power. As climate change and droughts become more common throughout the region, Ethiopia will have to account more and more for environmental factors in order to keep up with the rising demand for energy and electricity. Over 70% of the freshwater resources that Ethiopia has access to can be found at the Blue Nile River Basin.Here, three river systems, the Abbay (44%), Baro-Akobo (20%), and Tekeze (6%) provide the country with vital water resources. Currently about 2 GW of hydropower capcity is being utilized in Ethiopia with the government planning on tapping into this technology five-fold in the coming years.

Biomass:
Over 91% of the primary energy supply in Ethiopia is coming from biomass as of 2015 (45.8 out of 49.9 MTOE). Additionally, in the final sectors of Ethiopian society more than 90% of the enrgy is coming from biomass and of that 99% is consumed by direct residencies. Often coming in the form of animal product and forestry, natural resources, biomass as a renewable energy source is utilized extensively by direct residences and the final sector. Over time Ethiopia’s forests have shrunk from covering 35% of the country at the turn of the twentieth century to under 15% currently. This loss can primarily be attributed to population growth. The country’s developed a strategy it calls the Woody Biomass Inventory and Strategic Planning Project to attempt to combat the noticeable degradation of vegetation cover and address resource shortages for future industrial and energy needs. As of 2008, 85% of Ethiopia's population almost exclusively relied on two types of biomass fuels for cooking: woody biomass and dung. Such a reliance on biomass backed fuels has been linked to the over 72,400 indoor air pollution caused deaths that occur annually in Ethiopia.

Wind:
Ethiopia has benefitted from the creation and sustainment of two large wind power systems. In October of 2013 the largest wind farm on the continent, the Adama plants, started capturing energy in Ethiopia. The Adama 1 plant has a capacity to produce 51 MW while the Adama 2 plant has a capacity to generate 51 MW. Another farm of note is the Ashegoda wind farm and the Ashegoda Expansion wind farm which together produce roughly 120 MW of electricity. The total wind potential for Ethiopia was estimated to be as high as 1.3 million MW annually confirmed by an independent study done by a foreign firm.

Solar Power:
Ethiopia generally receives 5.26 kWh/meter squared/day with slight variation dependent on the season. Between 2010 and 2015 the Ethiopian government distributed 254,000 solar home systems and 2.8 million solar lanterns to residents. The consistency of the solar industry provides Ethiopia with a possibility to reduce it’s own dependency on biomass sources. As of 2018, Ethiopia had launched the National Electrification Program which aimed for 65% of the population to be grid-connected by 2025.