According to him, the key issue here is not the level of demand for solar energy, but the availability of areas for locating the solar plants. “Ethiopia has 24 industrial parks and each of those parks consists of sheds of 6000 and 11000 square meters. Give me the chance to install rooftop solar panels at these sheds, and I will give you more electricity that industrial parks need”, he said.
“Off-grid solar electricity generation can feed agriculture irrigation, agro-processing, manufacturing and mining”, Mikael remarked. “Diesel generation is 5 times more expensive than solar, and still Ethiopia every year imports 1 billion dollars worth of diesel oil to be burned for generation of electricity. We need to stop this madness”, he stated.
