You're looking at revenue numbers, not profits. Profit in the utility industry is 0 on operations and maintenance expenses and 0-9% (depending on whether you ar

You're looking at revenue numbers, not profits. Profit in the utility industry is 0 on operations and maintenance expenses and 0-9% (depending on whether you are a public utility or co-op, of which there are many, and whether your regulator thinks you've been good or bad lately) on capital expenses. Expenses must be approved by the regulator as well. How strict that is depends on the state but in New York for example it's approved at the department level. All utility salaries are below non-utility equivalents and keeping people from going to Google or Meta by paying higher salaries is effectively illegal. This is not to boo-hoo for utilities. The ones that are for-profit do fine. But they are not parasitically extracting vast profits because that isn't allowed.