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Ethiopia is a lower-income country with an agrarian based, fast-growing economy that is susceptible to climate change impacts. As the nation continues to develop, domestic electricity consumption and electricity export opportunities will increase alongside a growing electricity demand for groundwater irrigation to mitigate the effects of drought. There are upcoming mega-dams– the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Genale Dawa III, and Koysha – that will triple the electricity generation capacity. However, the central electricity grid is not sufficient to efficiently utilize this new capacity. We model future grid expansion scenarios by building a regional-scale linear optimal power flow model based on a transshipment representation of power flow that guides cost-optimal generation operations and transmission expansion, while satisfying competing electricity demand for domestic electricity consumption, groundwater …