The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has bemoaned the lingering metering gap in view of the negative impact on electricity customers on estimated billing.
To address the lingering challenge, the commission urged Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to utilise any of the five meter financing frameworks provided in the 2021 Meter Asset Provider (MAP) and the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) to close the current metering gap nationwide.
The industry regulator, in its just published report on the electricity sector in Q3, 2023 disclosed that a total of 148,389 meters were installed during the quarter.
According to commission, this represents a decrease of 32,670 installations compared to the 181,059 meters installed in Q2 2023.
The report further reflected that during the quarter, 147,736 meters were installed under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) framework while 207 meters were installed under the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP).
The regulator disclosed that the vendor financed framework recorded 446 meter installations while no meter installations was recorded under the DisCo Financed framework.
It reported: ”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”, the NERC added.
