The Federal Republic of Somalia is located in the Horn of Africa with the longest coastline on the continent's mainland. Somalia has an estimated population of around 14.3 million. The capital is Mogadishu and Somali is the official language.

Agriculture is the most important economic sector of Somalia. It accounts for about 65% of the GDP and employs 65% of the workforce. Livestock contributes to about 40% of GDP and more than 50% of export earnings. Other principal exports include fish, charcoal and bananas while sugar, sorghum and corn are destined to the domestic market. The Somali economy relies heavily on overseas development assistance and even more on financial remittances.

The Somali energy sector is one of the most underdeveloped in the region with high cost of power, high technical and commercial losses, dependency on imported petroleum products for electricity generation, and reliance on biomass resources for cooking. The electrification rate is low, especially in rural areas, and stood at 29.89 % in 2016.

The energy mix in Somalia is completely dominated by locally available charcoal and firewood as the main sources of energy which causes great destruction of the vegetative cover thereby amplifying what is considered to be the most important energy and environmental problem the country faces. Electricity supply has suffered from over two decades of neglect, including the absence of investments, due to both widespread insecurity and the disappearance of public resources and public oversight.

There is significant potential in all Somali areas in terms of renewable and alternative sources of energy, such as solar and wind power, but so far, due to both security and funding problems, only very small, timid experiments have been conducted with solar and wind power. The extensive coastline with the presence of attractive offshore winds lends itself particularly to the generation of wind energy. Measurements of wind speeds have ranged from a low 3 m/s to a high of 11.4 m/s. Wind energy has been exploited for over 70 years primarily for water pumping. Somalia receives an average solar insolation of between 5 and 7 kWh/ m2 /day translating into a total energy capacity of 2, 163 million MWh/ year. The most common uses of solar potential include lighting, cooking and water pumping and heating in both public and private buildings.

The deployment of hydroelectricity has been seriously hampered by the security issues in the country. The in-country potential for hydropower is estimated at between 100 and 120 MW of which only 4% has been exploited on the Juba river.

Somalia has great potential for developing energy from various resources. However, the long period of civil strife has led to serious deficiencies in energy infrastructure development.