Solar Energy Challenges for Rural Electrification: Case Study of Lower-Shabelle Region of Somalia

Renewable energy is a promising energy source for sustainability to meet the demands of clean energy in the future and the alternative way of fusil fuels. Somalia has great potential for alternative energy sources, particularly solar and wind power. Apart from that, there are challenges related to the implementation of this alternative energy source especially solar energy for rural electrification in the Lower-Shabelle region in Somalia which can be categorized as social awareness, financial difficulties, and technical obstacles. The aim of this research is to identify and evaluate the challenges of solar energy for rural electrification in Lower-Shabelle region in Somalia, the current energy sources that have been utilized and the possible future strategies that should be in Somalia. This research project is conducted through a survey using an online questionnaire that has been distributed in Afgooye district in Lower-Shabelle region in Somalia. The statistical model of IBM SPSS version 25 was used to study the descriptive analysis of the collected data, reliability analysis and distribution test analysis. Based on the statistical analysis, the results indicated the significance impact of scattered settlement pattern of rural people in this area as 46% of respondents agreed, while 32% participants strongly agreed and 26% agreed towards the impact of traditionalway of living of rural people and dependence on conventional energy source. A significantpercentage of the respondents have shown strong agreement 39% and agreement of 34% regarding the impact of higher cost of importing off-grid solar products. Additionally, a significant number (46.1%) of them have responded with agreement on low-rate return of from solar projects in the rural areas. Furthermore, respondents recognized the effect of shortage or lack of technical knowledge of solar technologies in this region, with 38% of them in agreement and 36% agreed. Finally, respondents widely agreed about other technical related to solar technologies efficiency like battery overcharge and poor layout of solar panels where most of the respondents agreed about these challenges.