Era of estimated billing to end soon – DisCos

The era of estimated billing is gradually coming to an end as the 11 Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, have assured their non-Maximum Demand customers that they are working toward ending estimated electricity billing in Nigeria.

The Chief Executive Officer of Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, ANED, Mr. Azu Obiaya, in a statement last week, said that DISCOs would meet their metering targets which are captured by Performance Agreements with the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

Clarifying the stoppage of estimated billing methodology for unmetered large power users, the association also called Maximum Demand (MD) customers, noted that residential customers that were yet to be metered should continue to pay their estimated bills. Such large customers, it explained, included commercial and industrial customers who consume high levels of electricity, noting that the threshold consumption for MD customers is 45KVA and mostly have dedicated transformers.

“While we continue to operate with the estimated billing methodology that is approved and mandated by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), we are working diligently towards addressing the metering obligations specified under our Performance Agreements with the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), and ensuring that we continue to be sensitive and responsive to the inadvertent challenges of estimated billing that our residential or non-MD customers are faced with, “ the statement said.

“It is critically important that we state that there is no more interested party in the comprehensive metering of our electricity consumers than the DisCos. It is our hope and expectation that such metering will be achieved sooner rather than later.” “The NERC directive only applies to MD customers and not residential customers, “NERC has made the clarification as well, which is available on their website and publicised,” it added.