Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has commenced the installation of 222,728 meters in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and Kogi states.
The installation of 222,728 meters, which began at CITEC Estate in the FCT, is the second phase of the mass metering project of the company. It would be recalled that the company had in the first phase of its mass metering project in 2016, installed about 150,000 meters for customers across its coverage area
The Chairman of AEDC, Mr. Shehu Malami, explained that the latest metering of customers had become a recurring issue in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
To tackle the problem, he disclosed that the Federal Government had initially moved to resolve the issue through the Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation (CAPMI), and lately introduced the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme to resolve issues of metering in the sector.
Malami pointed out that the execution of the metering project would enhance billion system transparency and energy accountability.
According to him, with the commitment of N10 billion by the company for the provision of 222,728 units of meters indicated that DisCos were not benefiting from estimated billing.
The AEDC boss said: “This project will last for five months after which all metering programmes will come under the Meter Asset Provider Policy that has been put in place by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).”
He appealed to customers not to bypass the meters in order not to short-change the Discos as they brace for improved and transparent billing system nationwide.
In his remarks, the company’s Managing Director, Mr Ernest Mupwaya, said that the latest metering exercise would address the issues of estimated billing, high losses from areas where there were no meters and confirm to the customers that AEDC was not benefiting from it.
“Commission studies have shown that we incur more losses in areas where there are no meters. Our loss level in those areas is up to 70 per cent, the project will also hopefully address the challenge of resistance to payment and energy accounting’’, the industry expert said.
He said the installation of the meters would engender trust in billing and create a win –win situation for both customers and AEDC.
He said AEDC was confident that customers who were not accommodated in the second phase would be taken care of by the Meter Asset Provider Policy.
To protect the investment on metering project, Mupwaya appealed to the security agencies and other stakeholders to help curtail the incidents of energy theft.
He also hinted that the company had flagged off the deployment of 6,000 distribution transformers to enable the company effectively carry out energy balancing on each transformer.
The AEDC boss explained that the transformers would help generate business intelligence on illegal usage, overloading of transformers and accurate estimated billing.
