Yemisi Izuora
The federal government has mandated Electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos, to adopt electronic platforms for the payment of bills across the country.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said the move is to reduce the aggregate technical, commercial and collection losses the DisCos are facing.
The commission asked the DisCos to leverage on available banking channels approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ensure prudence in the utilisation of market funds.
While the power firms have till January 31 to migrate industrial and commercial customers to their cashless electronic platforms, they have till March 31 to move residential customers to pay their bills only on the platforms.
“The Federal Government issued a policy directive that requires the mandatory transition of certain classes of end-use customers of DisCos from direct cash settlement of bills to cashless settlement platforms in order to reduce collection leakages/losses and improve overall revenue assurance in NESI,” NERC said.
“The Commission notes that this policy directive complies with EPSRA and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as furthers the objective of improving transparency in NESI by introducing greater clarity on collections from end-use customers and prudence in the utilization of market funds.
“Without prejudice to the provisions of section 10 of the Cash Collection Regulation”; all DisCos shall transit to cashless settlement platforms for the billing/collection of R3 class of residential customers by 31 March 2020.
“Provide customers with appropriate bank account details and other approved channels for receiving/processing payments such as mobile money, electronic wallets etc.
“All DisCos shall ensure full accountability of energy flow with the installation of appropriate metering infrastructure that is integrated with the CMS of all industrial, commercial and R3 class of residential customers by 31 December 2020.”
The commission also asked the DisCos to publish details of customer service/contact centers to promptly address electronic payment enquiries along with stipulated timelines for addressing customer complaints.
Meanwhile, power generation from the nation’s generating companies hits an average of 3,781MW in 2019 from a yearly average of 3,807MW in 2018, according to data from the office of the Vice President has shown.
At 50.17Hz with an installed capacity of available units of 6,985.9MW and generation capability of available units of 5,983.1MW, power generation has remained low and insufficient to meet the nation’s energy demand.
Besides, constrained revenue in the last 12 months between January and December rose to N626.7b billion, as the National Electricity Transmission System, also known as power grid suffered a no less than 11 major collapse during the year, plunging the country into a blackout at various times.
Specifically, monthly constrained revenue showed that the nation in January, lost N41.37b; February, N44.38b; March, N49.35b; April, N49.14b; May, N45.25; June, N50.30b; July, N57.62b; and in August, N58.01b. In September, losses rose to N59.7b, followed by N65.4 billion in October, while losses in November and December stood at N52.4b and N51.9b respectively.
The incidents of collapse peaked this year, on Saturday, November 9, 2019 for the eleventh time and were confirmed on Twitter by Distribution companies (Discos) whose coverage areas were rocked by the blackout. The Transmission Company of Nigeria explained that the system collapsed due to high voltage following a massive drop of load by the electricity distribution companies.
This means Nigerians have continued to depend on alternative sources of energy to power their households despite government’s reforms, thus, limiting consumers’ disposable income that should have been used for other purposes and well as increased environmental pollution.
According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the operating environment remains challenging and depresses productivity in the manufacturing sector. Specifically, the operators cited poor electricity and gas supplies/non-reliability of gas supply/scarcity of diesel/high cost of LPG as the highest impediment to production in the country.
Data from the Office of Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, indicated that within the period under review, Nigeria’s privatised power sector lost N626.7b billion revenue due to constraints which included a shortage of gas; grid unreliability and distribution limitations.
The data from the Advisory Power Team in Osinbajo’s office showed that for this period, the average volume of electricity generated and distributed daily to Nigerian homes and offices was constrained by an average of 3,781MW due to the limitations.
According to the data, Nigeria’s power sector attained a peak generation of about 5,375MW during the period.
The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, had earlier in the year, expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of electricity distribution companies in the country, saying there was the need for a substantial change of strategy in order to meet the electricity needs of homes and businesses.He lamented the inability of the Discos to distribute available grid power to consumers.
“The distribution capacity in the 11 Discos is significantly low, hovering at around 4,000 megawatts on average with a peak at about 5,400MW.
So, despite all the availability of about 8,000MW of generation and 7,000MW of transmission capacity, the lack of Disco infrastructure to absorb and deliver grid power to end-users has largely restricted generation to an average of about 4,000MW, and sometimes even falling below 4,000MW,” the Vice-President said.
During the period under review, average energy generated by Egbin station 2 was 385.91MW as against its installed capacity of 1,320MW; Delta Power Station generated 308.77MW during the period as against its installed capacity of 900MW; Kainji, 337.23MW, while ASCO and AES did not generate anything during the period.
