The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has ordered the country’s eleven power distribution providers to supply 715, 000 prepaid electricity meters by 2024.
This comes as the country’s eight million users continue to be billed arbitrarily due to energy providers’ failure to provide meters to end users.
NERC’s most recent multi-year tariff order (MYTO) delivered to the eleven distribution companies revealed that each company will spend N6.25 billion on metering, bringing the total metering cost to N68.75 billion.
While Nigeria today has over 13 million registered grid-connected energy users, only roughly five million have been metered since the electrical sector was deregulated over ten years ago.
In November of last year, only roughly 51,631 people were metered across the country, with the coverage rate remaining at 44.23%. Last year, NERC agreed to send four million meters to consumers. However, the promise remained elusive, and the continuation of the mass metering initiative proved to be a phantom.
The NERC previously stated in the key performance indicators (KPIs) based on the performance agreement (PA) with DisCos that power utility companies are responsible for metering customers.
Wunmi Iledare, an energy economics professor, is still surprised that metering is still a problem in Nigeria in this day and age.
“A metre is essential for accurately recovering the costs of electricity generation and delivery. It is also a means to determine the actual energy use per household. So it is astonishing that DisCos are behind in metering their customers,” Iledare added.
While the Ninth National Assembly may have abandoned a bill attempting to criminalize anticipated billing, Iledare believes declaring estimated billing illegal is a quick method to meter consumers.
Sam Amadi, the former Chairman of NERC, argued that the sector’s energy theft and liquidity crisis could only be addressed if consumers were metered.
“We must combat energy theft by strict implementation of legislation. However, unless the majority of your clients are metered, whether postpaid or prepaid, you will have limited success. Metering will be extremely beneficial in reducing losses while we try to improve the sector’s overall efficiency,” he said.
Meanwhile, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company Plc (EEDC) has stated that it is ready to implement the Token Identifier (TID) rollover as part of the STS prepaid meter upgrade by the end of February 2024.
Emeka Ezeh, Head of Corporate Communications at EEDC, stressed the process’s simplicity and the fact that it is necessary for all prepaid meter consumers.
According to him, failing to comply may result in meter loss and power outages. To avoid supply problems during the rollover, he encouraged clients to acquire enough energy units in advance, as the vending platform will be momentarily shut down.
