The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has extended the deadline for meter upgrades to January 1, 2025.

NERC, in a statement on its official X account on Thursday, warned electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to ensure their customers’ meters are upgraded by then or face sanctions.

The commission set a new deadline for meter upgrades following the expiration of the previous date of November 24, with the DisCos failing to meet a certain percentage of the target population for the scheme.

NERC gave the ultimatum during the fourth quarter of the 2024 Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) stakeholders meeting, with the regulatory body threatening to impose penalties on any defaulting DisCo.

“NERC has directed DisCos to rapidly conclude the migration of STS-Meters for all their customers to prevent disruption of service,” the statement read.

“During the Q4 NESI stakeholders meeting, the commission warned that daily penalties would be imposed for each meter not migrated effective from 1stJanuary 2025.

“The metering programme is set to be upgraded from Unistar to Standard Transfer Specifications (STS) meters by the DisCos for all their customers.”

The commission earlier this week said the country’s metering gap remains significant despite the installation of 3.03 million meters since the privatization of the sector in 2013.

According to NERC, the metering rate currently hovers around 50 per cent, leaving half of the electricity customers on estimated billing.

The Commissioner In charge of planning, research, and strategy, Dr Yusuf Ali, at the 2024 edition of PwC’s Annual Power and Utilities Roundtable, disclosed that the reliance on estimated billing and the metering gap poses a major challenge to the sector’s liquidity and overall efficiency.

Ali, during his presentation titled ‘Recent Policy Reforms and NERC Orders: Exploring Their Potential to Renew Optimism in the Electric Power Sector’, mentioned that the metering challenge is worsened by the poor level of customer enumeration across DisCos.

He noted that metering Is the lifeblood of revenue recovery, noting that the effectiveness of tariff reforms will be imperilled by poor metering.

In a breakdown of the metering rate since 2020, according to the Commissioner, in 2020, there were 11.84 million registered customers with 4.66 million metered, a metering rate of 39.36 per cent, while in 2021, the nation had 12.86 million registered customers with 4.69 million metered, a metering rate of 36.47 per cent.

In 2022, the country had 12.15 million registered customers with 5.13 million metered, a metering rate of 42.22 per cent; in 2023, the metered customers stood at 5.84 million out of 13.16 million registered customers, a metering rate of 44.38 per cent; while in 2024, the metered customers stand at 6.15 million out of 13.33 million registered customers, a metering rate of 46.14 per cent. (The Guardian)