NERC: Number of electricity customers hit 12m in Sept 2023 — only 44% are metered

Over 12.82 million electricity customers have been registered in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) as of September 30, 2023.

This was disclosed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in its latest third quarter (Q3) 2023 report.

Of the total registered customers, NERC said only 5,707,838 (44.51 percent) are metered.

The report said Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IEDC) has the highest number of metered customers at 1.012 million, signalling a 43 percent metering rate.

Following closely behind, Ikeja DisCo has 887,000 metered customers (72 percent metering rate).

Abuja DisCo has 836,000 metered end-users, which is at 60 percent metering rate; and Benin DisCo has 639,000 metered end-users, amounting to 50 percent metering rate.

With a metering rate of 43 percent, Enugu DisCo has 604,000 metered clients; Port Harcourt DisCo has a metering rate of 41 percent at 483,000 customers; and Jos Disco has a metering rate of 33 percent at 239,000 customers.

Kano Electricity and Kaduna Electricity DisCos have 209,000 and 203,000 customers, at 24 percent metering rates respectively.

Yola DisCo had the lowest metering rate at 19 percent, with 118,000 customers.

Meanwhile, NERC said 148,389 meters were installed for end-users across the country in the third quarter of this year.

According to the report, the figure represents a decline of 32,670 installations (18.04 percent) compared to 181,059 meters installed in Q2 2023.

“The new installations resulted in a 0.35pp increase in net end-user metering rate in the NESI between 2023/Q2 (44.16%) and 2023/Q3 (44.51%),” NERC said. 

“During the quarter,147,736 meters were installed under the MAP framework while 207 meters were installed under the NMMP framework.”

NERC said the vendor-financed framework recorded 446 meter installations while no meter installations were recorded under the DisCo-financed framework.