The Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) initiative, launched in 2015 by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), defines the way energy access is measured in 6 tiers (from tier 0 to tier 5). This is in contrast to the way energy/electricity access was traditionally measured in a binary measure of “connected or not connected” without any consideration to the level of access and other nuances. According to the MTF, electricity access is measured based on the combination of seven attributes of energy across six tiers of access with minimum requirements by tier of electricity access.

The MTF collects a comprehensive set of data at the country level, analyzes the date and informs policy makers and governments to help them form a comprehensive energy policy. In their own words... "The specific data captured by the MTF allows governments to identify and understand energy access gaps and develop potential solutions to improve energy services. The MTF identifies and analyzes the main reasons why households are not using electricity, or why their usage is limited (i.e. by capacity, reliability or affordability issues), and then recommends a set of measures to remove such constraints...". To learn more about the country specific survey and diagnostic reported for Ethiopia, please refer here.

Following the MTF, the Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) has categorized indicative electric appliances and their tier capacity as a way to help understand the electric power or load requirements for typical household products as shown in the diagram below (National Electrification Program 2.0, Integrated Planning for Universal Access, 2019, page xvii). We use this model as a guide for our product categorization. We use this guide as our primary tool to help us categorize our products.