*Electricity distribution transformer.
OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — A total of 52% of electricity users in Nigerians are still under estimated billing despite government’s efforts at stemming the tide of the menace across the country.
According to the regulator, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC in a newly-released order, about 52% of over 10 million electricity customers population in Nigeria as of 2019 received estimated bills and do not have meters.
The NERC said government had received reports that majority of customers were unmetered and that there have been little changes in the situation as the deployment of meters by electricity distribution companies, DisCos has been outpaced by the growth in customer numbers in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry, NESI. Number of electricity consumers grew from 5 million in 2012 to over 10 million as at December 2019.
Hence, NERC said the need for the introduction of a standard methodology of estimated billing in NESI to close the metering gap.
The regulator, however, said the successful implementation of the methodology for estimated billing regulations was hindered by the inadequate level of metering of feeders and distribution transformers which form the source data for the effective application of the estimation methodology.
As a way f0orward to estimated billing, the federal government in November said it had released funds for distribution of 1 million ‘free’ meters under the first phase.
According to President Buhari through his official Twitter account, @MBuhari, deployment had started in Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, and Abuja.
