By Yahaya Umar
Federal Government paid a total of ₦38bn as a subsidy on electricity consumption in the second quarter of 2024, a report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission ,NERC, has revealed.
The report, covering April to June 2024, also revealed that the government assumed responsibility for 52% of total generation costs, amounting to ₦380.06bn, to shield consumers from tariff increases following the freezing of end-user tariffs at December 2022 levels.
“The NBET invoice payable by the DisCos for 2024/Q2 was only ₦343.76bn because the FGN has taken responsibility for 52% (₦380.06bn) of the total generation costs in the form of subsidies arising from the freezing of end-use customer tariffs at the rates that became effective in December 2022’’, the report stated.
NERC’s report stated further that the total upstream invoice payable by distribution companies ,DisCos, for the quarter stood at ₦399.53bn.
According to the report, this consists of ₦343.76bn for adjusted generation costs from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc ,NBET, and ₦55.77bn for transmission and administrative services provided by the Market Operator ,MO.
However, the report noted that DisCos collectively remitted ₦318.65bn, which included ₦271.8bn for NBET and ₦46.78bn for the MO, leaving an outstanding balance of ₦80.88bn.
This translates to a remittance performance of 79.76% for Q2, a decline from the 96.93% recorded in the first quarter of 2024.
The NERC report also highlighted that the revenue collected by DisCos from consumers during the period was ₦431.16bn out of a total of ₦543.64bn billed, reflecting a collection efficiency of 79.31%.
This, the commission, noted marks a slight improvement from the 79.11% collection efficiency recorded in the previous quarter.
Also, on the payments made by bilateral customers during Q2, NERC stated that the International customers paid $9.81 million against the $15.60m invoiced to them by the MO, while domestic bilateral customers paid ₦1.30bn out of ₦1.99bn invoiced.
“In 2024/Q2, the four (4) international bilateral customers serviced by the MO made a cumulative payment of $9.81 million against the $15.60 million invoice issued to them by the MO for services rendered in 2024/Q2.
“Similarly, the domestic bilateral customers made a cumulative payment of ₦1,295.90m against the cumulative invoice of ₦1,991.30m issued to them by the MO for services rendered in 2024/Q2.
“It is noteworthy that both local and international bilateral customers made payments during 2024/Q2 for outstanding MO invoices from previous quarters; the international bilateral customers paid $16.65m while the domestic bilateral customers paid ₦1,309.97m”, the report stated.
However, the number of Nigerians using estimated billing has risen to 7.07 million in the first quarter of 2024 despite government efforts to increase the adoption of meters.
Electricity supply also fell from 5,769.52 Gigawatt hours (Gwh) in Q1 to 5,612.52 (Gwh) in Q2 2024 and 5.03% compared to 5,909.83 (Gwh) reported in Q2 2023.
These were contained in the Nigeria Electricity Report released on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics ,NBS.
The NBS said the rise in the number of estimated customers during the quarter at 7.07 million rose 10.04% from 6.43 million in Q1 2024.
On yearly comparison, the estimated customers increased by 17.86% in Q2 2024 from 6 million in Q2 2023.
The adoption of metering by customers only rose by 0.25% in Q2 2024 to 5.92 million compared to 5.91 million customers of Q1 2024.
The Bureau gave insight that the number of metered customers which hit 5.92 million by the end of June 2024 represents an 8.18% surge compared to the 5.47 million customers held in the Q2 of 2023.
Although the trends show a slow transition to prepaid billing, the total number of electricity customers during the period rose to 12.99 million in Q2 as against the 12.33 million customers in Q1 of the same year.
When compared to the Q2 of 2023, the number represents a rise of 13.24% from 11.47 million.
The Distribution Companies ,DisCos, collected N391.7bn in revenue in Q2 2024 as against the N291.62bn in Q1 2024.
“On a year-on-year basis, revenue generated in the reference period rose by 48.90% from N263.08bn recorded in Q2 2023″, NBS said.
