Over seven million Nigerians still unmetered — NERC

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has revealed that over seven million Nigerians remain unmetered, as electricity distribution companies, known as DisCos, have only managed to meter 672,539 customers out of more than 13.16 million registered customers.

This information was included in NERC’s 2023 Annual Report, which was released in Abuja on Monday.

According to the report, as of December 31, 2023, only 5,842,726 (44.39%) of the registered 13,162,572 customers in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry were metered.

ALSO READ: Petrol price 40% cheaper in Nigeria than Saudi Arabia doesn’t make sense — Dangote 

In 2023, DisCos installed 672,539 end-use customer meters.

Of these, 25,847 meters were installed under the National Mass Metering Program (NMMP), while 585,265 meters were installed through the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) framework.

Additionally, 6,912 meters were installed via the Vendor Finance Metering framework, and 53 end-use customer meters were installed under the DisCo Financed framework.

The report read: “A Minimum Remittance Obligation (MRO) adjusted invoice of ₦858.03 billion was issued by Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading plc (NBET) and Market Operator (MO) for energy costs and administrative services to DisCos in 2023.

“The DisCos remitted a total of ₦706.73 billion, resulting in a deficit of ₦151.30 billion during the year. Based on the above, the gross DisCo remittance rate to the upstream segment for 2023 was 82.37 per cent.”

According to the report, in terms of electricity subsidies, the federal government is expected to pay approximately ₦180.8 billion to power consumers in Bands ‘B’ to ‘E’, whose tariffs have remained frozen since December 2022, as reported from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“In line with the policy direction of the federal government on electricity subsidy, the allowed tariffs for Bands B-E customer categories shall remain frozen at the rates payable since December 2022 subject to further policy direction by the government,” NERC said.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE