The latest report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on the power sector for Q1 2025 indicated that the billing efficiency of electricity distribution companies (DisCos) in the country dropped to 81.18% in the first quarter of this year, from the 83.53% recorded in Q4 2024.
The NERC reported that although the total energy received by all DisCos in 2025/Q1 was 8,169.00GWh, the energy billed to end-use customers was only 6,631.92GWh, translating into an overall billing efficiency of 81.18%, representing a 2.48% drop compared to the billing efficiency of 83.66% recorded in Q4 2024.
NERC further disclosed that the Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collection (ATC&C) loss across all DisCos in the quarter stood at 39.61%, comprising technical and commercial loss of 18.82% and a collection loss of 25.61%.
It added that the ATC&C loss of 39.61% was 19.07pp higher than the 2025 MYTO target (20.54%) and translated to a cumulative revenue loss of N200.495 billion across all DisCos in the quarter under review
The ATC&C loss represents the combined impact of billing losses arising from a DisCo’s inability to bill 100% of the energy delivered to customers (technical and commercial losses) and collection losses, which result from the DisCo’s inability to collect 100% of the billed amounts from customers.
The NERC clarified: “The ATC&C loss increased by 4.39pp (worse performance) compared to 2024/Q4 (35.22%). All the DisCos failed to achieve their target ATC&C during the quarter, with Kaduna DisCo recording the worst underperformance relative to the target ATC&C (Actual – 68.57% vs. target – 21.32%).”
The report further showed that the total revenue generated by all DisCos in Q1 this year was N553.63 billion out of N744.27 billion billed to customers, representing a collection efficiency of 74.39%, and a decrease of 3.05pp compared to 77.44% in the previous quarter.
Similarly, in the quarter under review, the cumulative upstream invoice payable by the electricity distribution companies totalled N432.13 billion.
According to the NERC, this comprised N370.37 billion for DisCos’ Remittance Obligation (DRO)-adjusted generation costs from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) company, and N61.76 billion for transmission and administrative services rendered by the Market Operator (MO).
Of this total amount, the DisCos remitted N414.26 billion, comprising N354.77 billion to NBET and N59.49 billion to the MO, leaving an outstanding balance of N17.87 billion. The DisCos remittance translated to 95.86% performance in the quarter, and an improvement over the 92.68% recorded in Q4 2024.
The commission further reported that in the quarter under review, the six international bilateral customers purchasing power from the grid-connected GenCos made a total payment of $5.80 million out of the $17.24 million invoice issued to them by the MO for services rendered in the quarter, representing 33.70% remittance.
In addition, the report revealed that domestic bilateral customers made a cumulative payment of N1.86 billion against the N2.6 billion invoice issued to them by the MO for services rendered in Q1 2025.
