Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) reported a provisional net income of 4.6 billion birr ($32 million) for the 2024/25 fiscal year, signaling a major financial turnaround for the state-owned power distributor. The earnings reflect a sharp rebound driven by higher energy sales, strong customer growth, and a jump in electricity consumption.
Gross revenue surged to 51.76 billion birr, with energy and related services accounting for the bulk of the gains. The performance marks a significant departure from the utility's recent financial struggles and positions EEU as a rare success story among Ethiopia’s public enterprises.
The profitability leap follows a year of aggressive expansion. EEU added over 500,000 new customers, pushing its total user base to 5.2 million. The growth helped fuel a 29% rise in national electricity consumption, totaling 13,405 gigawatt-hours an indicator of both industrial recovery and widening household access.
While the government has yet to publish year-on-year net income comparisons, the results are widely seen as the utility’s strongest to date. Analysts attribute the gains to operational scaling and tariff adjustments, as well as improved billing and collections infrastructure.
Still, challenges remain. Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH), the sovereign holding company overseeing EEU, has urged the utility to focus on service quality and operational efficiency. Key recommendations include reducing outages, enhancing project delivery, and sustaining long-term system reliability.
The results underscore Ethiopia’s growing energy demand and the strategic importance of utility reform in the country’s broader development agenda. With electricity access playing a central role in industrialization plans, EEU’s financial rebound could signal deeper shifts across Ethiopia’s infrastructure and investment landscape.