NERC Says Discos’ Customers Rose to over 13m in Dec., Approves N210bn for TCN

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said that the registered power supply customers in Nigeria rose to 13,162,572 in December 2023.

In a factsheet released by the regulatory commission, it noted that only about 5.842 of the number is metered with 7,319,846 still on estimated billing, but added that during the month 43,631 customers were metered.

A breakdown of the figures showed that Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) had the highest customers of 2,401,864 registered on its network followed by the Abuja Disco with 1,414,356 registered customers.

Others include Enugu Disco with 1,396,440 customers, Benin Disco with 1,324,373; Ikeja Disco, 1,238,295; Port Harcourt Disco with 1,179,194 and Kano Disco, 872,656.

Some other power distributors listed were: Kaduna Disco, 864,128; Jos Disco, 730,402; Yola Disco 813,313 and Aba power with 191,405 customers.

According to the factsheet, the commission received 91,576 complaints during the period with metering topping the most complaints as 57,119 cases were received followed by billing with 17,734 cases.

Other complaints were on interruption of supply with 6,510 cases; voltage, 1,244; disconnection, 1,182; load shedding, 422; delay 169 and other complaints, 17,194 cases.

Meanwhile, NERC, has approved the sum of N210.14 billion for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) as its revenue requirement for 2024, saying that the revenue will enable the company to implement its Power Improvement Plan (PIP).

The approved requirement included N98.24 billion, that is, 46.7 per cent to be spent as capital expenditure and N111.90 billion, that is , 53.3 per cent to be expended on operating expenditure .