Nearly five years after its privatisation, the nation’s power sector has left most electricity consumers with little or nothing to cheer about as metering remains a key problem,
Electricity consumers have expressed disappointment as nine of the 11 power distribution companies in the country have not supplied meters to more than half of their customers.
The total power generation has been hovering around 3,000 megawatts in recent months on the back of gas constraints, transmission line and distribution network limitations and water management issues, leaving at least 3,000MW idle.
A new report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission obtained by our correspondent on Saturday showed that out of the 8,135,730 registered electricity customers, only 3,434,003 (about 42 per cent) had been metered as of the end of the first quarter of this year.
“The data is disappointing; we are moving at a snail’s pace. We have the capacity to meet up the requirement if we are conscious to do what is right. Looking at those who have actually applied to have meters, more than 50 per cent of those who need meters and who have applied for them are unmetered, then we cannot actually say that we are making progress,” the President, Electricity Consumers Association of Nigeria, Mr Chijioke James, told our correspondent.
“Not until every customer that is eligible to have a meter is actually metered, then as far as we are concerned, they (electricity distribution firms) are not doing anything. A lot of people are on estimated billing and corruption is still there,” he added.
According to NERC’s first quarter 2018 report, in comparison with the last quarter of 2017, the registered customers increased by 2.37 per cent, while the metered customers declined by 3.9 per cent.
The regulator attributed the increase in the number of registered customers to the ongoing enumeration by the Discos, which it said had helped them (power distributors) to register some individuals who had previously consumed electricity through illegal connection to the networks.
“Metering still remains a key challenge facing the industry,” NERC said, adding that only two Discos, Benin and Port Harcourt, had metered up to 50 per cent of their customers as of the end of the first quarter of this year.
According to the report, three in every five registered electricity consumers are unmetered, with the Yola Disco having the lowest metering rate at 21 per cent.
“A major initiative towards improving revenue collection in the Nigerian electricity industry is the provision of meters to all end-use consumers of electricity,” the regulator stated.
It said the Meter Asset Provider Regulations’ scheme was launched recently to enable third-party meter providers to work with the Discos in bridging the metering gap in the industry.
