NERC Says Unmetered Electricity Customers In Nigeria Rose To About 7 million

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) announced its 2023 Annual Report on Monday in Abuja.

Of the 13,162,572 registered customers in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry as of December 31, 2023, only 5,842,726 (44.39%) were metered. DisCos installed 672,539 end-use customer meters in 2023.

These figures demonstrate the slow-paced metering efforts by the DisCos, leaving a larger amount of customers heavily relying on the controversial estimated billing system.

585,265 meters were erected under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) framework, and 25,847 meters were installed under the National Mass Metering Program (NMMP) framework.

Additionally, 53 end-use customer meters were put through the DisCo Financed framework, while 6,912 meters were deployed under the Vendor Finance Metering framework.

This is in response to worries expressed by industry experts that sluggish metering could exacerbate billing disputes and customer unhappiness.

In the meantime, the year-over-year dip in the electricity subsidy to ₦151.30 billion represented a 17.7% decrease from 2022.

According to the report, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET) and Market Operator (MO) sent a Minimum Remittance Obligation (MRO) modified invoice to DisCos for 2023 for energy costs and administrative services totaling ₦858.03 billion.

With ₦706.73 billion submitted by the DisCos, there was a ₦151.30 billion shortfall for the year.

The gross DisCo remittance rate to the upstream section for 2023 was 82.37%, based on the information above.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) claims that the federal government plans to provide electricity subsidies of about ₦180.8 billion to power users in Bands ‘B’ through ‘E,’ whose tariffs have been locked since December 2022.

NERC granted ₦26.4 billion for Abuja customers, ₦23.76 billion for Ikeja Disco, ₦22.21 billion for Ibadan Disco, ₦19.92 billion for Eko Disco, and ₦14.87 billion for Benin Disco this month in regards to subsidy payments.