After NERC’s February metering deadline for Discos: What next?

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), had set February 28, 2017 for Electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to meter all Maximum Demand customers within their catchment areas.

Last year, as part of its mandate to ensure that the rights of electricity customers are protected and guarantee investors fair returns on their investments, NERC in June 2016, after consultation with the operators, directed electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to conclude metering of all maximum demand (MD) electricity customers in their networks not later than November 30, 2016.

However, because the Discos could not meet up with the deadline, the commission again granted three months extension which expires February 28, 2017, to enable the DisCos effectively execute the metering deployment plan for MD customers.
Sequel to the directives and approach of the expiration date of the moratorium period, NERC said that it would commence regulatory action against any defaulting DisCo(s), beginning March 1, 2017.

It, however, directed any electricity customer on MD category who is yet to be metered as at February 28, 2017 to report to the commission.
Investigation conducted by Business Times revealed that some of the DisCos contacted are working hard to meet the deadline, while others are simply paying little or no attention to instructions.

For instance, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) recently metered over 3,500 out of the 3,895 MD customers, and according to investigation, the installation is ongoing.
Although AbimbolaOdubiyi, Director, Corporate Services, AEDC, the distribution company promised to meet the NERC’s February 28 deadline to meter all MD customers yet, fresh information has it that all customers are yet to be metered.

“But let me also use this opportunity to explain that AEDC is running two projects concurrently in this regard. The installation of meters and provision of automated meter reading (AMR) facility that enables us and our customers in this class to monitor electricity consumption. While the MD customers monitor their consumption from their facilities, AEDC is also able to monitor the consumption from a control centre.

This makes it easy for the company to detect any attempt to tamper with meters. And so, in some cases, we are actually replacing the meters with those that are AMR compliant”, Odubiyi said. Eko Electricity Distribution Company said that it had almost completed the metering exercise.

According to Godwin Idemudia, General Manager, Communications and Strategy, a total of 6,300 customers out of 6,647 MD customers within the company’s catchment area have been achieved.Idemudia said that a total number of 67,000 meters of different categories had been installed since taken over.

“In fact, the company was second in recent NERC metering assessment nationwide. We have expanded over N4.5 billion on metering alone in three years,” he said.
He said that Eko Electric would meter the remaining 47 MD customers before the deadline.
Idemudia said that the company just awarded a 100,000 meters roll out to Huawei Technology and Mojec.On its part, Ikeja Electric said that the company had done more than 85 per cent of MD meters within its axis.

According to Felix, Head of Corporate Communication, “Out of 5,200 MD meter customers, over 4,000 have been achieved as 300 of the total number are inactive.
For Benin Electricity Distribution company, one of the top officials to energyTimes that the company have metered all the 3,000 MD customers within its catchment area
Now that the deadline is way behind, not even NERC is speaking up about its next line of action against erring Discos. Inside sources hinted Business Times that the Discos have held private meetings with NERC officials, and asked for further extension of the dates.

NERC had in the past, slammed fines of millions of Naira on electricity operators over different trespasses and disobedience. Sources say top government officials have waded into the matter, which made NERC to hold back on its threats to fine Discos who failed to meet the target.
Obviously, not all electricity customers have been metered.

And now that NERC has held back its judgement, an ongoing argument says that the Commission may have succeeded in portraying itself as a toothless bulldog.
However, another school of thought believes the Discos clearly met more than they bargained for, and should be given more time to meet demands in the sector.
So what will NERC do now?