The eleven electricity distribution companies (DisCos) in Nigeria’s electricity supply industry have amassed N514.95 billion in revenue in the first half of 2023, representing the highest collection recorded in the period in the past nine years.
This development marks a significant milestone and underscores the evolving dynamics within the country’s power distribution landscape.
Analysis of the latest data by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) revealed that the DisCos earned N267.86 billion as electricity bills in the second quarter of this year, indicating an 8.4 percent increase from N247.09 collected in the first quarter.
Industry operators said the recent increase in DisCos revenue is due to factors such as better metering technology monitoring, stricter regulatory oversight, higher tariffs, more investments in infrastructure, a larger customer base, and improved collection efficiency.
“The increase in DisCos revenue is due to better metering, technological monitoring of money flows, stricter regulatory oversight by NERC and the Bureau of Public Enterprises, and increased investments in infrastructure by DisCos,” said Chinedu Onyegbula, an energy sector expert.
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Metering in the first half of the year stood at 178,864, according to NERC, representing a 2.04 percent increase compared to the 175,281 meters installed in the first quarter of the year.
During the second quarter, NERC revealed that 168,397 meters were installed under the Meter Assets Provider (MAP) framework while 9,302 meters were installed under the National Mass Metering Program (NMMP) framework.
The Commission expects DisCos to utilise any of the five meter financing frameworks that have been provided in the 2021 MAP and NMMP to close their respective metering gaps.
“As a safeguard for customers against exploitation due to the lack of meters, the Commission has continued to issue monthly energy caps for all feeders in each DisCo.
“This sets the maximum amount of energy that may be billed to an unmetered customer for the respective month based on gross energy received by the DisCo and consumption by metered customers,” NERC said.
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The Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) Loss in the second quarter of 2023 was 38.41 percent comprising – technical and commercial loss (18.47 percent) and collection loss (24.46 percent).
ATC&C provides a consolidated report of how much revenue a DisCo is able to collect relative to how much it should have collected based on the volume of energy it received (and sold to customers). It is the indicator that evaluates the actual energy and revenue loss in electricity distribution systems.
According to the regulator, the decline in ATC&C loss could be largely attributed to the 6.79 percentage points improvement in collection efficiency between the first and second quarter of 2023.
