New meter providers approved by NERC
THE LIST OF PO TENTIAL meter asset providers (MAPs) continues to grow as the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) considers interest from capable companies. According to a report released by the commission, a total of 115 companies have been approved for the scheme so far.
Some of the companies that just joined the list include Koby Global Engineering Services Limited; Klartek Nigeria Limited; City Matrix Nigeria Limited; Erasko Energy Limited; AKP Technique Limited; Misiweng Company Limited; Telecard Pribor Nigeria Limited; and Hybrid Oil & Gas Services Limited.
Following the go ahead given by the NERC, DisCos then engaged the “no objection” firms by announcing bid rounds, whereby these companies are invited to bid in order to operate under the jurisdiction of any DisCos.
The MAP Regulation mandates DisCos to engage meter assets providers who fund purchase, installation and replacement of meters to meet Discos metering obligations to their customers, within three years of the introduction of the regulations.
“The implementation timeline for closing the metering gap is within 3 years and the meter asset provider regulation’s (MAP) main objective is to fast track the roll out of end-use meters for all consumers thereby ensuring that customers pay only for the energy they consume,” NERC said.
NERC has already directed electricity distribution companies, popularly known as DisCos in the country to conclude all customer enumeration in their areas of coverage by March 31, 2019.
According to a statement released by the commission , the DisCos were directed to carry out an extensive customer enumeration to determine their actual customer base. NERC said that customer enumeration will “improve metering” and help Discos “respond to electricity issues quickly”.
The current level of metering is still very low, as three out of every 10 customers are metered, NERC said, a feat that is worrying be$60/megawatts cause most Nigerians are still being subjected to estimated billing.
In an attempt to reduce this, NERC then said in a recent report that it was considering a cap on estimated billing based on the projected average monthly consumption of each tariff class in the Multi-Year Tariff Order model.
The regulator also considered the application of the average consumption of each tariff class within a franchise area as the cap for estimated billing of unmetered customers; and capping the estimated bill of consumers within a business unit to the average vending of the same tariff class within the area.