Abuja DisCo meters 88,000 customers, targets 120,000 by Dec

The Managing Director of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Engr. Ernest Mupwaya, says his company has installed 88,000 meters and will install 120,000 units by December 2017 to tackle complaints on estimated billing.

Engr. Mupwaya said this yesterday at the opening of a two-day workshop on energy theft for judges within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

He said, “The issue slowing down metering is funding constraint in the electricity market but we have found a way around it. We have used the vendor financing system to acquire 120,000 meters and if they are deployed and protected from energy theft, we can gain more funding and meter more customers.”

He also said out of the 800,000 customer base, AEDC has metered 3,800 who are the largest power users and constituted 50 per cent of the revenue collection base, including governments’ Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

To make meters more available, he said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has proposed revival of the Credited Advanced Payment for Metering Initiative (CAPMI) where customers bought meters at designated shops around the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) and have them installed with refund.

Mupwaya who decried the constraints in getting a cost reflective tariff that will ensure that power firms operated optimally, said “The wholesale (generation) tariff has increased by 100 per cent since privatisation, on the retail side; the increase is only 16 per cent so there is already a big deficit.”

He said while the DisCos sought cost reflective tariff to enable them make more investments including metering, customers would want to be metered first, before they would support any tariff increase.

He advised NERC to address the liquidity gap by computing the tariff shortfall into the DisCos’ assets so it could reflect in their balance sheets as projected revenue to be cleared through future tariff review when the electricity market stabilised.

This would enable lenders to see the DisCos’ account as positive and give more funding for investment requirement, Mupwaya noted.