The Federal Government in conjunction with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has announced plans to purchase four million locally manufactured prepaid metres.
This was disclosed in the 2022 Market Competition Report published by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
The report further stated that following the completion of Phase 0 of the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) with the main objective of rolling out one million metres, the commission has commenced engagement with relevant stakeholders to initiate Phase 1 of the programme.
Phase 1 will deal with the provision of financing by the Nigerian government and the CBN to Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to procure four million locally produced electricity metres.
“Following the completion of Phase 0 of the NMMP (scope is the rollout of about one million metres), the Commission has commenced engagement with relevant stakeholders to kick off Phase 1 of the NMMP. Phase 1 is designed to provide FGN-CBN financing to DisCos to procure 4 million metres from Local Meter Manufacturers and Assemblers,” the report said.
Recall the FG had earlier this year, issued fresh licences to 20 new local metre manufacturers in preparation for Phase 1 of the NMMP.
The NERC report also showed that from 2013 (Post privatisation) to December 2022, about 2,558,617 additional end-use non - Maximum Demand (MD) metres had been installed, with the addition of replaced faulty meters.
Most of the deployed metres came in under the schemes – Credited Advanced Payment for Metering Implementation (“CAPMI”), Meter Assets Provider (“MAP”) and the NMMP – which jointly accounted for 91.79% of the metres installed during the period.
In total, 76.67% of the MD customers in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, (NESI) have been metered, as of December 2022.
The report further stated that NERC had gone ahead to set up a metre acquisition fund in the December 2022 Tariff Order to support the deployment of end-user meters.
This was to mitigate the risk of financing outside the electricity market.