- Nigeria’s electricity market recorded a deficit of ₦151.30 billion in 2023, with DisCos settling ₦706.73 billion of an ₦858.03 billion invoice issued by the NERC.
- Eko and Yola DisCos achieved high remittance rates of over 105%, while Kaduna DisCo reported the lowest at just 17.59% amid ongoing customer complaints about service issues.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has reported a total deficit of ₦151.30 billion in Nigeria’s electricity market for 2023. This follows the issuance of an ₦858.03 billion invoice to electricity distribution companies (DisCos) for energy received from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) and for service charges from the market operator (MO).
According to NERC’s “2023 Annual Report & Accounts”, DisCos settled ₦706.73 billion of the total invoice, achieving an overall remittance performance of 82.37%. The report indicates that total billing to electricity consumers reached ₦1,463.24 billion, with only ₦1,077.51 billion collected, leaving an outstanding debt of ₦385.73 billion and a collection efficiency of 73.64%.
The report highlighted that Eko and Yola DisCos excelled in remittance performance to NBET, achieving rates of 105.76% and 105.14%, respectively. In contrast, Kaduna DisCo recorded the lowest remittance performance at just 17.59%, for remittances to the MO, Yola, Eko, and Ikeja led the way with rates of 90.91%, 90.85%, and 90.38%. In comparison, Kaduna again fell short at 10.75%.
NERC also addressed ongoing customer complaints, noting that metering, billing, and service interruptions comprised 82.82% of the 7,207 complaints received through its Customer Complaints Unit. The commission achieved a resolution rate of 70.31%, resolving 5,067 complaints.
Additionally, NERC launched the Power Outage Reporting System (PORS) during the year to enable customers to report outages in real-time. This initiative aims to enhance customer service and address persistent issues within the electricity sector.
“A review of the customer complaints data presented in Figure A indicates that metering, billing, and service interruption issues were the most common customer complaints, accounting for 82.82% (5,969) of the total complaints at the NERC-CCU in 2023’’, the report stated further.
On the metering, the report disclosed that as of December 31, 2023, only 44.39% of the registered 13.16 million Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) customers were metered. It added that in 2023, DisCos installed 672,539 new meters, including those under the National Mass Metering Program and the Meter Asset Provider framework.
As of December 31, 2023, only 5,842,726 (44.39%) of the registered 13,162,572 customers in the NESI were metered. DisCos installed 672,539 end-use customer meters in 2023. Twenty-five thousand eight hundred forty-seven meters were installed under the National Mass Metering Program (NMMP) framework.
Meanwhile 585,265 meters were installed under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) framework. Furthermore, 6,912 meters were installed through the Vendor Finance Metering framework while 53 end-use customer meters were installed through the DisCo Financed framework’’, the report stated further.