Ethiopia Cuts Power Supply to Data Mining Firms by 75%, CEO Reveals

Betegbar Yaregal

#EBR_News Aug 28, 2026

Ethiopian Electric Power has cut electricity supply to data mining operations by 75%, delivering only around 23% of contracted volumes, as declining water inflows into the country’s hydroelectric dams forced the corporation to prioritise public electricity access over its largest single revenue-generating customer segment, chief executive officer Ashebir Balcha said at the corporation’s annual performance briefing in Addis Ababa on Friday.

The disclosure helps explain a trend flagged in EEP’s own 2025/26 fiscal year performance report, which showed capacity utilisation falling to 60%, against a target of 67%, even as the corporation’s installed generation capacity grew 23% to 9,730 MW during the year.

Ashebir said the reduction was deliberate and pre-emptive, rather than the result of unforeseen technical failure. “We had agreed to deliver 98% under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) we signed. However, recognising that a dry period is approaching, we reduced the supply by 75% and are currently delivering only around 23%,” he said.

According to Ashebir, EEP’s decision-making was driven by seasonal water inflow patterns into its hydro reservoirs, which supply 95% of the corporation’s total generation mix. He said the highest water inflows typically occur in July and August, with the peak inflow for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) specifically occurring in August, and some continued inflow into September.

“Because we anticipated this through early forecasts over the past few months, we acted quickly to reduce power supply to data mining,” he said, adding that monitoring and meteorological forecasts now indicate incoming water levels are decreasing by at least 20%, prompting the corporation to lower both its revenue and supply projections for the year ahead.

Ashebir was direct about where data mining, a segment that generated 50.37 billion birr in the past fiscal year, more than any other customer category, ranks in the corporation’s order of priorities.

“Data mining and energy exports are secondary priorities for us, our primary focus is our public and domestic industries,” he said, noting that despite complaints lodged by affected data mining clients, EEP would not restore their supply “while leaving our people in the dark.”

The CEO said the corporation would reassess its position in October, once clearer data on generation capacity for the new water year becomes available, and would then decide whether to increase or further reduce supply to the segment.

He also detailed the direct technical link between falling water volumes and output, saying that as reservoir levels drop, generation capacity decreases proportionally, with EEP losing up to 50 megawatts of capacity per generating unit.