FG to begin second phase distribution of 4m prepaid meters

The federal government says it has concluded arrangements for commencement of the second phase of its national mass metering programme (NMMP).

Sale Mamman, minister of power, announced this in a Facebook post on Thursday.

The NMMP is an initiative of the federal government and electricity distribution companies (DisCos), working in collaboration with local meter manufacturers, to provide smart prepaid meters to all unmetered customers.

The federal government provided funding for the program through loans from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to DisCos. Meters are provided to customers free of charge.

In August 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered nationwide metering of electricity consumers to check estimated billings.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said over 1 million customers have been metered by DisCos under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme and NMMP.

“It will be recalled that the 1st phase (Phase 0) was launched later than expected in December 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a target of 1million meters across the country.  Till date, 750,000 meters have been delivered to DISCOs in just under 8 months,” he said.

“This is a marked improvement in terms of the speed of installation of meters compared to its predecessor (Meter Asset Provider – MAP program) which recorded 350,000-meter installations in just over 18 months.

“This phase will provide up to 4 million meters and shall also use a similar financing mechanism as phase 0. One of the key successes of the NMMP initiative is how rapidly it has increased private sector interest in investing in the local meter assembly, manufacturing and installation space. 

“In addition to the springing up of new factories such as the Quantum meter assembly plant in Lagos and the Smart Meter assembly plant in Kaduna, We are also seeing the refurbishment and upgrade of some metering plants that had also fallen into disrepair such as EMCON in Kaduna.”