Ep. 16: Focus on Ethiopia, the world’s first country to ban non‑EVs since 2024! Johannes Huber ex GIZ shares his expert view on local sustainable energy and EVs.

0:11 Welcome to the Smart Charge by RiDERgy podcast. This is Claudio Geyken, founder and CEO of RiDERgy. This is your show to learn about all things energy management and smart charging innovation for electric vehicles and fleets.

0:39 Welcome to a new episode of the Smart Charge podcast. Today, we're going to Africa, to a country that is leading the way in electric vehicles: Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the first country in the world that has banned ICEs, so only electric vehicles can be imported into the country, and this since last year, January 2024. This is a bold move, filled with challenges, where there is no master plan that has been developed yet. It was announced just in 2023. We dive deep into all the aspects of the

1:19 energy system, the mobility system, and even before that, the economic system of the country - how it's developing to adjust to the needs of electric vehicles as well. With an absolute expert in development economics, Johannes Huba, he brings in several years of experience both in South Africa and Ethiopia, and explains to us how the situation is, what challenges are being faced, and how to tackle them. He especially shares with us a few fun facts and a few interesting anecdotes from his personal life

2:02 there. So there's lots to learn about the country, and one thing I'm already giving you before we start, so that you get yourself a nice coffee: Arabica - the plant, the coffee plant - came from Ethiopia. So let's dive deep into this topic of the bold move to electric vehicles from a country unlike any other: Ethiopia. Alright, hello Johannes, how are you today? Very good, very good. I'm happy to be here. Thanks a lot. How are you? Thanks, I'm also very good. Even though the

2:38 podcast studio is a bit hot today, but we'll manage. Maybe it gives a bit of an Ethiopian feeling too, as this episode is all about Ethiopia. But before we dive into Ethiopia, to help the listeners understand more about your background, can you explain your background - maybe where you grew up and what you did so far? Sure, sure. So I'm originally from Lake Constance, from the south of Germany, and after

3:10 high school I've been around a lot, focusing my studies on the African continent, even though my background is economics - but always with a focus on development policy and development economics. And more recently, in my master's degree, I turned towards energy economics. But the basics are in economics; that's what I did. And through various internships and projects on the African continent, it all started with South Africa, and then I

3:47 got opportunities in Ethiopia, and I sort of changed my focus from the Southern African region to the East African region. That's basically, in very short, how my last - you could say 10 years or so - looked like. And I currently live in Berlin again. I've been in Berlin for about 1.5 years, and I work in the energy industry now for an association, the Association of Local Public Utilities,

4:23 even though my focus has changed a bit now. My previous job was in Ethiopia; I used to live in Ethiopia, and I used to work for the German Development Corporation over there. Yeah, that's quite a basic rundown of what the last 10 years or so looked like. And so one step back - how did you get passionate about development economics? Well, that started, I would say, all

4:56 back around 2012 when I went to South Africa for the first time, and I did one of those classical voluntary services that a lot of Germans do when they're interested to do something else and not go straight to studying. I went to South Africa with the "weltwärts" program, which is financed by the government as well. What's the program? The program is called "weltwärts." It's from the Ministry for

5:29 Economic Development - the German Ministry for Economic Development. It's a very broadly used program by a lot of young Germans who are interested in going abroad. The name is "weltwärts," exactly. And that's how I got interested. That's basically what led to my bachelor's degree in economics and development, and I sort of just stayed in the field, I would say.

6:04 Got it. But something drove you to that program in the first place, right? To do the voluntary work in South Africa. Was there anything that triggered that? I wanted to go and see something else, I think. And I started to look for different things. I did go abroad during high school as well. I went to the US for an exchange for 6

6:34 months. I did a small exchange to Egypt even - I think it was grade 10 or 11. So I did get interested in going elsewhere before. And then I basically just looked for something to do after high school for a year before going to university. Understood. And so after South Africa, you said you went to Ethiopia. I did a couple of things in South Africa during my bachelor's, which was mostly

7:06 a semester abroad, one or two internships. And then I applied with GIZ and the German Development Corporation. Exactly. And there was a position in Ethiopia, which was quite matching to my studies at the time, which was in organizational development. I have to say my studies were in economics, but the faculty or the program also focused on institutions. So that was quite fitting because the internship that I then

7:46 got at GIZ was on organizational development. So the topics were quite matching, and that's why I got that one in Ethiopia, I would say. OK, and what was the mission about in Ethiopia? What did you have to do? Ethiopia was - so GIZ is organized in projects abroad, and in a lot of countries GIZ has country offices. Ethiopia is a bit more special because Ethiopia, you could sort of compare it with - it's sort of the Brussels of

8:20 the African continent. Oh, is it? That's funny, I didn't know that. OK. I mean, you have the African Union in Ethiopia, so the headquarters of the African Union is in Addis Ababa. The commission of the African Union is in Addis Ababa. So GIZ not only has a country office, but also a liaison office to the African Union. And that's also a project office, and that's where I used to work. And the project was basically

8:51 on organizational development, meaning trying to implement different projects to help the commission do their work better, more efficiently. That's it in easy terms. Did you know anything about Ethiopia before going there, or what were your first impressions? To be very honest, not a single thing. Not a single thing. I thought to myself when I got the job, "Oh wow, I'm going to Ethiopia." I just started to research a little

9:24 bit, but I had no idea what to expect. And in my young mind, I sort of thought it was going to be a bit similar to what I saw in South Africa, so I might be able to use some experiences from South Africa in Ethiopia. I have to say - nothing whatsoever. Completely different. A completely different world, a completely different culture. I just applied out of the blue and went

9:57 into cold water, you can say. For my personal experience, yeah. And what do you remember were the first things that really shocked you, or impressed you, or were surprising to you? I remember the day of my arrival quite vividly. It was in the middle of the night in Ethiopia. Usually the international flights that come into Ethiopia always land around midnight, or they land when it's still dark, and you basically have to

10:31 take a taxi to your location. Of course, I arrived, there was a taxi driver who was supposed to pick me up with very little English, and he drove me to some guest house. I remember that - you got there from Germany. I got there from Germany. I went into the guest house and there was no electricity, and the water in the beginning - because at that moment it was simply out, you know, a thing. There was a

11:02 local blackout - maybe a brownout, you never knew exactly what the problem was. It might only have been the house, it might have been a couple of houses around. I also have to say that in the last couple of years it has become a lot more stable, but it was a daily thing when I used to live there. I arrived for the first time in

11:31 2018 and I left in 2021. That was the time frame. So of course it was a completely new world, and I didn't know the language, I didn't know anything. I didn't really have a way to get around. It was those first couple of days trying to go outside, just be around, and try to get a couple of basic things - food to cook with. Just a

12:00 very different world, trying to do the basics that you also do in Germany, just in a very different world. Got it. And in which ways was Ethiopia different to South Africa, based on your experience? Well, first of all, South Africa has quite a lot of basics that just work - it's a bit more developed. You do have electricity and water supply that usually works. I mean, that's

12:36 one thing that you do realize, but culturally it's a huge difference. The Ethiopian culture is extremely different from, of course, the South African culture. And it's a very distinct and interesting one that I would say is less comparable to countries like South Africa or Kenya or Tanzania, which I see more similarities to South Africa compared to the Ethiopian culture. Can you give one example just to make it a bit more

13:11 tangible? In my experience, in how I view it, Ethiopians are quite respectful - extremely respectful - and they also keep a distance, and that's what I felt in daily life a lot. I could feel that there is definitely interest towards foreigners, but sort of the respect was there not to go in your way, into your space. That wasn't a thing

13:50 So you could walk around, of course. You were always a person of interest because you were from somewhere else, obviously, but it was not at all like that. No one would go out of their way. People were rather very helpful when you asked them, but not many people would, for example, ask you if you needed any help. So that was sort of the main difference that I experienced throughout my

14:20 whole time. Interesting. And before we move to the big topic of today, related to mobility and energy, and deep dive into that as well, just first on the GIZ again - a bit more on what you did there. What was the main outcome of your three years? What were the interesting projects that you did that you want to highlight? Well, I was working on one project. Every project is, of course,

14:51 always different from project to project, but usually a project is around 3 to 4 years. My time there was pretty much 3 years, so I was there for one project phase. The project we implemented was on human resources and finances, and my focus was on financial development. That basically included working with the finance department on how to increase

15:30 the budgeting process. So at the end of the project phase we had developed a way on how to, in the future, do a better job on the budgeting process. You can think of it as a manual that was there to try and harmonize the whole process across the Commission of the African Union. Yeah, that was pretty much the project. And

16:02 most listeners might not know so much about Ethiopia in general. Maybe you can give some, based on what you know, the core indicators of the country so that people get a grasp and feel about which size of country and so on we're talking about. So Ethiopia - to my knowledge, I don't know the specific numbers, but to my knowledge we have around 120 million people in the country. So much larger than Germany. Exactly, and the

16:34 size of the country is also larger. I would say about 2 times, maybe 2.5 times the size of Germany. It's also organized in a federal way, so you have federal states like in Germany and a federal government like in Germany as well. You have the regional governments and the federal government. The regional governments and the regional states are quite strong in how they do things, and they, for example,

17:10 have their own police on the local level, and then there is the federal police. That's a similarity to Germany as well. On top of that, Ethiopia is quite interesting when it comes to the climate. You have mountains that go all the way up to about 5,000 m - really, really high mountains - and then you have a very low point which is −150 m below sea level. Minus 150. Is that like the lowest point on

17:44 Earth or something? Not the lowest point on Earth, but if I'm not completely mistaken, it is or might be one of the lowest points on the African continent. Wow, does it have a name? It's called the Danakil Depression, and it's in the north-east of the country, very close to the Eritrean border. So you can imagine with these differences in altitude you get a lot of different kinds of climate. The capital, for

18:16 example, is at 2,300 m. Addis Ababa? Addis Ababa, exactly. So it's one of the five or so highest capitals of the world, which also means you have temperatures that don't go completely crazy in either direction. Yeah, that's quite interesting about Ethiopia. And economically speaking, I know the origin of coffee - I think the coffee plant comes from Ethiopia - but I think the coffee industry might not be as

18:49 strong as it still was, but maybe you can also elaborate on other economic strengths of the country. Sure, that's a topic that's also already connected to our big topic today, which is interesting to go into. Coffee is the main export, the main thing that Ethiopia exports. It is, yes. They have a couple of other agricultural products that they export as well. For example, sesame is, I think, probably the

19:26 2nd biggest good. Coffee is still the first, and then some other agricultural products that they also export. There is not a big other branch or sector of production that Ethiopia exports. A little bit of flowers as well - Kenya is doing a bigger part, I think, but Ethiopia is also doing some flower production and export. But that's sort of the economy.

20:02 A lot of people don't live in cities. With 120 million in the whole country, they're not all going to live in the capital or in other cities. They live in rural areas of the country and they do subsistence farming. So there's not a lot of production that you would use outside these villages. When it comes to the rural areas, also a lot

20:34 Of poverty is still seen around as well. You can discuss the whole thing on poverty, how much, how poor are people that actually live in a village and can produce everything they need for themselves. But of course with climate change and all of that, the food that they are able to produce is also becoming less and less, and then it's not enough anymore to feed everyone, and then of course you definitely can talk about

21:06 poverty. And within the African continent, is Ethiopia on average, let's say, among the poorest or among the richest countries on the continent? I'm not sure whether you would call it extremely poor when you look at other African countries, but it's probably poor to middle somewhere compared to other countries on the continent, but definitely not among the richest. All right. And talking energy then, what's the energy production in the

21:43 energy grid - data that you can share? Sure. Energy in Ethiopia comes mainly from hydropower. Ethiopia has built, or is still in the process of finishing building, the so-called Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is a huge dam on the Blue Nile. Apparently, if used at full capacity, it can produce somewhere around 15 terawatt hours per year of electricity. And that's

22:27 enough to power the whole country. Ethiopia has a demand of around 12 to 13 terawatt hours per year currently. So if you use the dam at full capacity, you would be able to produce all the electricity needed. But of course right now the dam is not completely finished, to my knowledge, and it's operational, but not all turbines. I think you have a total of around 13 or 14 turbines. The person I spoke to,

23:01 the interview that I had - you can also share that - was with the World Resources Institute. One of their experts on electrification of roads, cars, trucks, and buses shared a couple of things with me and gave me an update. I had a very good conversation with him, and he told

23:33 me that, according to official data, 2 turbines are running. And 2 turbines out of 13 or 14 is of course not a lot. I found a couple of different sources online that said maybe it's already 5 or 6, but I'm not sure on how much production there is right now. But Ethiopia does get most of its electricity from hydropower today. Most - that means there are other sources too. There is a little bit of

24:08 wind and a little bit of old oil power plants. But hydropower is supposed to be the big thing for the future. And do they have solar at all? Not much. That might be part of the strategy to bring in more solar, especially in the city. Since when we talk about electric vehicles, it would be great to have solar on people's houses to charge them, but currently not something significant

24:46 for them. And gas, oil resources, and coal - do they have any of those in the country as their own resource? I'm not completely sure on how many gas or oil resources they have, but since they're focusing on hydropower, I would believe it's probably not a lot, because they're trying to become more independent with their general energy production. And that's where they're turning to what they have in the country, which would be hydropower.

25:20 So now one of the exciting, or very surprising, facts - and that's also one of the key reasons we're talking about Ethiopia in this podcast, making a deep dive - is the fact that it's been the first country in the world that has banned the sale of new ICEs, and therefore chose EVs before any other country, even before Norway, which is probably the one that people have in mind when they think about

25:50 EV leadership. How was your experience in Ethiopia in terms of mobility? Let's talk first in general about mobility, and then we can switch gears and see how e-mobility is lived and viable in the country and what the hurdles are to make it successful. So mobility in general - what was your personal experience, and what did you observe? How does it differ, for example, from a country like Germany? Sure,

26:24 public transport - let's start with that - is organized around minibuses: small Toyota minibuses that can seat around 15 people. That's something very typical you find in a lot of African countries. But they also have quite a large fleet of buses organized by the city of Addis Ababa. And then on top of that, when it comes to public transport, they have a sort of

27:01 - you can call it a city line, they call it the light rail - comparable to, I don't know, in Berlin the S-Bahn, not really a tram, something more like an S-Bahn, above ground. And it was built by Chinese investors, let's say 8 to 10 years ago or something like that. It was already around and operational when I came. And that was supposed to

27:36 Sort of also bring the city forward on public transport, because the city, of course, the people come into the city all the time. So it grows when it comes to population, but the infrastructure of the city sort of lagged behind. They're investing a lot currently to actually meet the demand that the city has. But that's why there's also not really official numbers, even though when you Google it, when you go on Wikipedia, I'm sure they say

28:05 numbers around 3 to 4 million, but I would say it's much further up, because people enter the city all the time every day. So much bigger than Berlin, I would say, in terms of the population. Yes, yeah. So that's one part, public transport. Privately, of course, there are small private cars - you see a lot of these cars that look like a Toyota Yaris. It's

28:39 called the Toyota Vitz. It's a very popular car in Ethiopia - easy to import, easy to get, easy to get spare parts for. So that's a very popular car. And they also have something like Uber; they call it Ride. It's a company called Ride, exactly. It was started, as far as I know, as a startup a couple of years ago and

29:07 very successful. And as far as I know, they started and probably still are an all-women company. Interesting - quite an interesting, super successful company nowadays. So that also adds to how you get around in the city. And then of course, in the rest of the country - I would say there's a big gap between Addis Ababa as a city and the rest of the country where, yes,

29:40 you do have transport that goes from city to city through the countryside, but Ethiopia also focused a lot on building small airfields, so they can basically offer their population the ability to get to all the different places in the country by plane. It's quite unique, I guess - at least I hadn't heard that before. And is it cheap as well? Planes are usually relatively

30:09 - there are two different prices. There's a price for Ethiopians and then there's a price for internationals. I'm saying this because there is a price for people that have Ethiopian citizenship or that are basically allowed to live there long term, but tourists pay a higher price. Still, that must be subsidized somehow. Heavily, yeah. I mean, you might pay for a flight as cheap as Ryanair in Europe, which is very cheap for

30:39 the African continent, because flights usually are not very cheap. And still, it's a big privilege to be able to fly in Ethiopia - the very poor would still take a bus, yes, absolutely. And is there a train system, intercity? No. There is one train that goes from Addis Ababa to Djibouti. It takes - well, it really depends - 12, 14, 15 hours, depending on how the ride goes. But that's

31:16 quite a comfortable one. It was built by Chinese investors as well, so the Chinese are very big in investing in Ethiopia - different big infrastructure projects. So the roads as well, I imagine, like in many other countries, the Chinese have built roads. They've renewed some of the roads - Chinese investors as well as Ethiopian investors, so they usually share it. Some of the roads are in great condition, some of the roads are in tough

31:47 condition as well. There is the big road that Ethiopia depends on between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. The imports of Ethiopia basically all come through the port of Djibouti, because they don't have access to sea. They don't have access to sea, exactly. So the only port that they have access to, or sort of that they are using, is the port of Djibouti. So all the trucks that come with the containers have to take a

32:18 certain route, and that road is of course heavily used and therefore torn down, not well maintained - or actually the opposite: there are so many trucks every day that even if you renewed the road, it wouldn't take long for it to be torn down again. And in terms of private ownership of passenger cars, given also the economic situation of the country, I imagine it's a very small minority that owns a

32:50 car. I would say so, yeah. Of course, again, big gap between Addis Ababa and other regional bigger cities compared to the countryside. But yes, I don't know what the numbers are, for example, for Germany - in Germany we have about 50 million cars. 50 million. Yeah. So it's not a ratio of 1 to 1 with the population, but still it's quite significant. I don't know

33:21 the ratio in Ethiopia, but I would be surprised if it were anywhere close to that. Yeah. And so moving now to e-mobility - I guess that's also the reason one would be surprised. How are they coping with the switch to e-mobility, in your knowledge? Based on the conversations you've had and the experience you've had, how does it work in practice? I imagine - from my experience - you have lots of secondhand vehicles usually being bought in Africa.

33:57 How is such a ban on ICE vehicles lived in practice, and what challenges occur? And then we will also move to how they are solving these challenges. So it was quite a drastic move, of course, to say, you know what, January 2024, we completely banned the import. Maybe you also know the background of the move. There are a lot of reasons, but basically the big thing that I already mentioned before

34:30 is: we want to be independent. Because with internal combustion engines, what you need is fuel. Ethiopia doesn't have fuel. They have to import the fuel, which needs a lot of dollars to do so, which they also don't have. So they're trying to become more independent when it comes to energy, as well as use their precious dollar reserves for other things that they really need them for. And of course, electrification is then one strategy to get there one day.

35:03 The implementation of that strategy is quite drastic compared to, you know, what we discuss in Germany - let's try to slowly, slowly phase out, 2035, exactly. In Ethiopia it was January 2024, and I think they announced it a year before, something like that. Quite drastic. And an import ban in Ethiopia basically means a ban, because cars are only imported. There's only - there might be a very small

35:37 part of production in Ethiopia, but most cars are imported. So is the ban only related to imports, or is it also related to production in Ethiopia? I'm not sure about that - have to fact-check that later. But the import ban is already the bulk of it, yeah. So those are the reasons behind

36:09 the whole move. There was another directive a couple of years earlier that banned the import of cars that were older than 5 years - I would have to fact-check that as well - but something like that. So they tried to only bring in newer cars, but still ICE cars. And then they made a very drastic move. Are we talking cars only, or also other types of vehicles?

36:41 Other types of vehicles too. They say the internal combustion engine as a whole. So meaning buses, minibuses - which, I can imagine how much that will impact, for example, taxi drivers, not the ones we talked about in the ride project, because they would get their cars for their drivers. But the traditional taxi drivers, you know, they don't even earn enough money to fill up a full tank,

37:17 let alone buy a whole new car, which is going to be very difficult. So let's talk about all the challenges so that we have a nice mountain to climb, and then maybe we'll find some rope or other means to climb it better. So what other challenges do you see due to that? The challenges - well, you have the typical challenges that you have with any EV. They don't go as

37:49 far as the ICE engine cars, which is a bit of a problem for going between cities in Ethiopia because the distances are very far, and you simply don't have charging stations in between. Currently, at the moment we are speaking, there are 2 public charging stations in Addis Ababa. Two public charging stations, which is crazy when you think about it. So people charge their cars at home.

38:25 Normal sockets or wall boxes? They do implement wall boxes. I think they are running business models now where they sell cars with wall boxes, so people can charge better at home. But then public charging stations, which are run by the telecommunications provider of Ethiopia, Ethio Telecom, there are 2 in the whole city - meaning also in the whole country. So all the other cities don't have

39:02 anything, and the highways have nothing yet, because it all came so drastic. So they have to implement all of that first, and that's why people are still, of course, using their normal ICE cars. But it's only slowly changing. Whenever people can, I guess they are slowly moving towards cheaper EVs. I'm saying cheaper because there is usually

39:36 a very high tax on importing cars in Ethiopia. How much is the tax? There are different kinds of taxes. For example, you have a 6% tax on anything you sell or buy - not only for cars, but anything in the country. The government wants 6% of that. So any car you buy, you already pay a 6% flat tax. The tax for cars specifically differs depending on what kind of car it is, whether it is considered a luxury car or a

40:09 car for basic human needs, so to say. So that's why I can't give you a specific figure. I know that in the beginning, when the import ban on ICE vehicles came in, they didn't have a tax specifically on EVs. So EVs were basically tax-free - you had the other kinds of taxes, the 6% for example - but there was no specific EV tax. Now they are reintroducing it slowly but surely.

40:40 Currently they're standing at 15% on top of the 6%, so you're standing at 21%, and then I think there are still some luxury taxes depending on what kind of vehicle you import. That's the one thing, but then on the other hand, the used car market - you definitely have to pay higher taxes for used cars, used ICE cars, compared to EV vehicles. That's why, of course, people can afford an EV much better, much easier.

41:14 So wait a second, are we talking about used ICEs being imported? No, not anymore, but you have a used local market - the local used market. That's more expensive: if you buy a used ICE in the country right now than if you buy a new imported one. In Germany we don't know this sort of - we don't have taxes on used vehicles. That's why - exactly, we don't have that. I can sell my vehicle to you without paying tax, whereas in Ethiopia you have

41:47 to pay extra tax. Interesting. Exactly. And do you see - so there's probably one of the cheapest EVs in the world right now, this BYD Seagull. Is there any trend that this is becoming super popular now in Ethiopia, or which models are they able to afford? I'm not sure if it's this specific BYD model, but I know that they have very good offers from the Chinese market in Ethiopia. And

42:17 most EVs that you see on the road in Ethiopia are Chinese. And how are they thinking about solving the range issue and the lack of charge points - especially, I imagine, if you live in a city and you can charge at home, no problem. Nevertheless, for all these other use cases we're talking about - trucks for logistics and buses for transporting people - and I understand we're not talking planes, right? We

42:50 - the planes are planes, yeah, so the planes are not banned. So for the other two use cases, there is not necessarily a great solution, or a solution at all yet, for all these problems. When it comes to these directives, it always sounds very strict in the beginning, but then you sort of have to find your way on making - or trying to get everyone to adapt to it, or trying to make it work for

43:22 everyone. I know that you can still get, for example, special permissions - let's call it special permissions - to import vehicles when you have a very good reason. For example, you need it for actually delivering things between cities and you can really prove you cannot do your job, you cannot do deliveries with an electric truck. So there is that - there are still special permissions - but the other thing is also that right now

43:54 you still have a lot of used vehicles that are running. People are just continuing to use them and paying a lot for fuel, because the fuel prices are extremely high. Are the fuel prices comparable to Germany? If you compare the fuel price, I think we are at around 120 birr. Currently €1 is 160 birr. But you have to look at the inflation - we are at, I think, I checked

44:29 today, we are at around 14% inflation in the country. Just to illustrate it a little bit: when I lived there in 2019, 2020, 2021, the fuel price was at 20 birr per litre. Now we are at 120. And that's a massive increase, and also the inflation of the currency - we were at €1 to 50 birr and now we are at €1 to 160. And of course the salaries of

45:08 people don't increase that much. Average people - the majority of the country - make around 3,000, 4,500, 5,000 birr a month. When you have a degree, maybe 7,000–8,000, something like that. I would say that's a middle-class salary. Now imagine you have to pay 120 birr of that monthly salary for 1 litre of fuel - that's insanely high. And why aren't there more charge points? The telecom company could create more charging stations. Do you know what's holding back the investment or the number of charge points?

45:49 I guess, since the ban came so suddenly, it's because the investments don't come in super quickly, and you also don't really have a great infrastructure of investors who would be interested in it - but those are just my assumptions. I know that Ethiopia is

46:23 in a transformation, or trying to transform, quite a lot of sectors. I guess this is just one sector where they need to get more financing, and where they might also have discussions on whether they can give it to private companies, because Ethio Telecom is a publicly owned enterprise controlled by the government. That might also be an issue. And grid stability - you said it has improved since you arrived in

46:59 the country? How can we imagine the improvements, and where is it now - especially considering the risk of not having your vehicle charged if the power grid is not stable? So the main thing of course was: how do we get this big chunk of electricity that is produced at the dam - which is, by the way, very close to the border of Sudan in the west of the country - and Addis Ababa, for

47:31 For example, it is pretty much in the middle. So there's quite a long stretch of, I don't know, 2,000 kilometers, maybe 1,500, something like that - but that's just a guess. Something like that between those two points, between Addis Ababa and the dam. And of course the dam is in the west, sorry - the dam is in the west, at the border of Sudan.

48:03 The border to Sudan, not far from South Sudan as well. And the question is how do you get the electricity from that point where it's not needed to all the points in the country where it is needed. Of course the big networks were strengthened, they replaced them. There was a lot of Chinese investment, but also some other international donors, and the international community gave some money to

48:36 just increase grid stability. But that doesn't apply to the local level, so the substations, for example, in Addis Ababa are not as strong yet. So while they have gotten a lot better when it comes to general electricity blackouts, if everyone is now going to charge their EVs, that's going to be a lot more difficult as well. So yes, that's a big challenge - not only producing the electricity but also getting it

49:11 to the point where it's needed. To my knowledge, Brazil, which also has a high share of hydropower, had huge issues related to droughts and therefore wanted to move more towards other forms of energy so that they don't rely only on hydropower, which - also considering global warming and droughts becoming more frequent - is not that smart as a single source of power. I'm not sure if there are any concerns that you have picked up in Ethiopia related

49:47 to that. When it comes to the dam, the specific project, not really. In that part of the country you don't really have a problem with droughts. They have a lot of water, much more than is needed, and that's why it was, I guess, also chosen for a project like that. The Blue Nile carries a lot of water that is all sourced in Ethiopia, and that region of Ethiopia - the west - is quite

50:20 green, quite lush. So water scarcity is not too much of a problem in that area. It is a problem in other areas of the country, but not where they produce the hydropower. Well, that's good news for them then. I guess so, yeah. Even though you can always talk about how sustainable hydropower at the end of the day is, because in Ethiopia - I looked at the satellite pictures of how big the lake at the dam has gotten

50:49 over the years - it's huge. It is the biggest hydropower dam in Africa, and it's larger than your home town. Definitely larger than Lake Constance. Definitely. Yeah, I'm not sure - Lake Constance, that would actually be a great comparison to look at. But I think it is larger than Lake Constance. Yeah, I think so.

51:14 Yeah. And what potential do you see? We talk in this podcast a lot about smart charging, V2G, bi-directional charging, and especially applications in countries where the energy system is a bit different - maybe there are spot markets, and there are more fluctuating, volatile renewables. What applications do you see? And maybe that also relates to the energy system as it's structured from a liberalization standpoint - you can elaborate on

51:51 that and how you see, or if you have even seen something already related to these topics, and what potential you see. I think I can just very quickly say that the potential is probably quite huge. But when it comes to all of the things that you just described, there is not much to be seen yet. Liberalization is not there. It's one national power company that

52:24 produces everything, runs the grids, and sells. Yeah, it's a state-owned monopoly. Exactly. I mean, they are slowly moving in other sectors - they're moving into liberalization, for example, in telecommunications. They have opened it up, so it's not only one company anymore; there are other companies investing. That might be a model in the future for electricity as well, but that's not a thing right now. Yeah. And just maybe for the listeners, one

53:01 idea: if we had solar power - as we were just discussing earlier - at people's homes or in companies' businesses, and combined that with battery storage or used electric vehicles as storage, eventually for times when the grid is not that stable, it opens up opportunities to save money as a whole for mobility as well. And these things still need to be developed, and it's not a straightforward start. No, absolutely, exactly.

53:32 The question is also whether there is actually a market there right now, because what I find interesting is that you talk about this import ban on ICE vehicles. But it's very, very difficult to compare the situation in Ethiopia to the situation in Europe or Germany. It's a very bold move, in my opinion, but of course when I look

54:02 At my experience of life in Addis, which was already - I've more or less only experienced the capital city - but for me it's very, very difficult to imagine how people outside of Addis would be interested in, would go into something that futuristic, I would say. Because the question is, is there a need for it? As an entrepreneur, I can't help but think, oh man, there must be a good opportunity as well for a private company to go into the

54:38 market now, given that there's such a strict regulation forcing everyone to move towards electric vehicles. And you said two charging stations in the whole country - it just cries out for a need for somebody to finance more charging stations, or maybe even a whole ecosystem around it, offering not only the charging stations but the whole energy management, electric vehicles, etc. But yeah, it would also be a very bold and

55:08 risky move to do that, I guess. Absolutely. Even though you might be surprised, Addis Ababa is quite a hub for startups and for entrepreneurship. Even though, yeah, there is a lot of regulation around it, I've experienced that there are a lot of people who have a lot of energy when it comes to this. So yeah, even though you've got the challenges in the country that

55:38 you have, the energy is definitely there. And as far as I know, foreign investors come in and they are looking for Ethiopian partners to do investments in the different infrastructures together. So that does happen, as much as is possible from a regulation point of view. Is that, by the way, something that GIZ does - these types of projects? That could also be an interesting development project

56:11 for GIZ? Yeah, for sure. In the long run, that could definitely be interesting. There are business support projects, and all sorts of different support projects. But of course, GIZ is always a partner to the government, and that's why it would always support the government strategy. That's the big thing for GIZ, I would say. Right, I think we covered a lot of ground.

56:45 We did. Thanks a lot for your time and for your insights, Johannes. I hope listeners could enjoy our podcast with a nice Arabica coffee coming from Ethiopia originally - and that was one of the nice legacies of this country - that definitely helped me as well to understand better and have more insights, and gave me a bit more impetus and energy to go and visit the country and maybe even start some business there. So thanks a lot,

57:15 and hopefully the country will manage this transition and be rewarded for this bold move. Definitely, yeah. Thanks a lot for inviting me. This is always great to talk about these topics, so very happy to be here. And if listeners want to connect with you, or if you have a last message for them, yeah, feel free to share. Yeah, I mean, we can of course always connect. I would be happy to continue the conversation on

57:43 these topics, because I find they're extremely important, but the conversation is not a big one about these topics. So it's always great to talk about it and to continue to do so. All right, have a great rest of the day, Johannes. Thanks a lot. The same to you. Thanks. And this was another episode of the Smart Charge by RiDERgy podcast. What a fascinating background from Johannes, who early on got fascinated about development economics and brings in interesting project experience in South

58:20 Africa, as well as a very international background, and then especially his deep knowledge about the country of Ethiopia. What a fascinating country, isn't it? I found especially the altitude differences - from -150 m to 5,000 m - quite fascinating, as well as the modes of transport and the planes, and how they move around given the altitude differences, and how they are moving to electric vehicles in such a bold move as the first country really trying to make an impact for their population that cannot

58:56 afford these high fuel prices. So with this abundance of renewables, it makes just total sense. Nevertheless, it's such a challenge to build charging infrastructure, to have a reliable grid, and having so few charging stations - like two big charging station spots in Addis Ababa, in the whole country - definitely opens up challenges and opportunities to make things better. Very curious to see how this develops over the years. And I hope you learned a ton about the country and the prospects

59:31 of e-mobility and smart charging, especially V2G, which will probably be part of the solution as things advance. I'm looking forward to you tuning in again in the next episode, and don't forget to share it with somebody who might find these types of topics interesting, and to give us a five-star rating. Bye.