The Department of Energy Affairs (DoEA) was established in 1992 as one of the three departments that constituted the then Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM).  The other departments were Department of Mines (DoM) and Department of Geological Surveys (DGS). MEM was however abolished in March 1998, following which DoEA was reconstituted under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs (MNREA) in 1999.

For a brief period of three months from 29th March 2004, DoEA operated under the jurisdiction of a reconstituted Ministry of Energy and Mining, which however, was dissolved again as part of the new institutional restructuring of the Ministries in June, 2004.  DoEA was one of the constituent departments of the Ministry of Mines, Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs before another institutional restructuring in 2007.  Currently DoEA is the only constituent department of the Ministry of Energy.