Determinants of Lighting Energy Transitions in Rural Ethiopia: Lessons from Mida Oromo and Wonisho Districts of Ethiopia

Modern renewable energy is an important tool to achieve socio-economic transformation, particularly in rural areas of developing countries like Ethiopia. However, most people do not access modern energy and thus providing it is one of the daunting tasks that the government has faced. Knowing energy choice of households is one of the important factors to bring energy transition. However, limited studies are undertaken in the Country on this area. Thus, this paper tried to address the gap by investigating factors affecting households lighting energy choice by taking sample of 442 households in Mida Oromo and Wonisho Districts of Ethiopia. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for analyzing the data. The result shows that households consume a range of traditional, transitional and modern lighting energy sources available in their areas. Wealthy households prefer lighting energy sources that are clean and relatively expensive including, grid electricity and solar energy unlike households in lower income category who opt to cheap and easily available energy sources. The study further highlighted that income is not the only factor affecting household energy transitions. Family size, access to market and road infrastructure, asset of the household and the district of the households, mobile and radio ownership and education attainment of the head or family members are found to be an important determinants affecting energy transition of rural households. The study concluded that any program that aim to provide modern lighting energy sources need to consider all these diverse factors and local contexts.