Not less than 715,000 users will have the prepaid meter this year the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has revealed.
This is against the background of the recent initiative of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC which ordered the country’s eleven power distribution companies to supply 715, 000 prepaid electricity meters in 2024).
This comes as eight million users are still on estimated billing system in the country amidst the inability of utility companies to provide meters to end-users.
NERC, in its latest multi-year tariff order (MYTO) sent to the eleven distribution companies showed that each of the companies would spend N6.25 billion on metering, bringing the metering bill to N68.75 billion.
While Nigeria currently has about 13 million registered grid-connected electricity customers, only about five million have been metered since the electricity sector was privatized over 10 years.
In November last year, only about 51,631 customers were metered across the country as the rate of coverage remained at 44.23 percent. Last year, NERC promised that four million meters would be provided to consumers. But the promise remained elusive even as the continuation of the mass metering program has been a mirage.
In the key performance indicators (KPIs) rooted in the performance agreement (PA) with DisCos, the NERC had earlier stated that power utility companies are charged with the responsibility of metering consumers.
Meanwhile, all efforts to reach out to the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, one the eleven distribution companies to seek further directive, through email and phone was not successful as at the time of filing this report was not successful.
