Entele Birku Reta
Department of Technology and Innovation Management, Adama Science and Technology University, P.O.box 1888, Adama, Ethiopia.
Heliyon. 2020 Feb 12;6(2):e03332. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03332. eCollection 2020 Feb.
Getting access to electricity services for domestic consumption is still a luxury service in the rural areas of developing countries. For instance, about 55 percent of the total population do not have access to electricity service in Ethiopia. To alleviate the problem, the government of Ethiopia is intensively investing on hydroelectric dam construction so as to increase the coverage of electricity. However, the grid-line electricity supply in the scattered settlements of rural households of Ethiopia poses a challenge for connection. This study investigated households' preference for renewable source of electricity service connections and estimated potential willingness to pay for the services by considering solar PV electricity in addition to the grid-line. In this survey, 220 rural households were sampled from Hexosa (Harbe) and Boset (Xiyyo) districts in Ethiopia using systematic sampling methods. The result estimated by using bivariate probit model reveals that the median willingness to pay alone is not sufficient to recover the cost of connection of electricity service. However, among the two sources of renewable electricity services, households preferred grid line to solar electricity services irrespective of the payment scheme. Monthly instalment-based payment is more convenient for the rural household than lump sum connection cost payment regarding the payment scheme. Furthermore, the households' income level, level of education, age, location and amount of initial bid prices are important variables in determining the scale of households' willingness to pay for connection of electricity service. Therefore, based on the findings of the study, the following policy suggestions have been forwarded: there should be provision of electricity service that is suitable and preferred by the rural households and the community shall get various options of payment modalities.
在发展中国家的农村地区，获得用于家庭消费的电力服务仍然是一项奢侈的服务。例如，埃塞俄比亚约55%的总人口无法获得电力服务。为缓解这一问题，埃塞俄比亚政府正在大力投资建设水电站大坝，以扩大电力覆盖范围。然而，埃塞俄比亚农村家庭分散居住点的电网电力供应给连接带来了挑战。本研究调查了家庭对可再生电力服务连接源的偏好，并通过考虑除电网电力之外的太阳能光伏发电，估计了家庭对这些服务的潜在支付意愿。在本次调查中，采用系统抽样方法从埃塞俄比亚的赫克索萨（哈尔贝）和博塞特（西约）地区抽取了220户农村家庭。使用双变量概率模型估计的结果表明，仅靠支付意愿中位数不足以收回电力服务连接成本。然而，在两种可再生电力服务来源中，无论支付方案如何，家庭都更喜欢电网电力服务而非太阳能电力服务。就支付方案而言，按月分期付款对农村家庭来说比一次性支付连接成本更方便。此外，家庭的收入水平、教育程度、年龄、地理位置和初始投标价格是决定家庭支付电力服务连接意愿规模的重要变量。因此，基于该研究的结果，提出了以下政策建议：应提供适合农村家庭且受其青睐的电力服务，并且社区应获得多种支付方式选择。
