From Uche Usim, Abuja
Estimated billing for electricity consumers will soon become a thing of the past as the 11 electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) have assured their non-Maximum Demand customers of working diligently towards meeting their metering obligations that will end the estimation nightmare faced by customers.
A statement from the CEO of Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Mr Azu Obiaya, at the weekend, t said the metering targets of the Discos which are captured by Performance Agreements with the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) are being followed to the letter.
The statement also clarified the suspension of estimated billing methodology for unmetered heavy power users also called Maximum Demand (MD) customers, noting that residential customers that are yet to be metered should continue to pay their bills, saying metering will be achieved sooner.
Such large customers it explained included commercial and industrial customers who consume high level of electricity noting that the threshold consumption for MD customers is 45KVA and mostly have dedicated transformers.
“While we continue to operate with the estimated billing methodology that is approved and mandated by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), we are working diligently towards addressing the metering obligations specified under our Performance Agreements with the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), and ensuring that we continue to be sensitive and responsive to the inadvertent challenges of estimated billing that our residential or non-MD customers are faced with.
“It is critically important that we state that there is no more interested party in the comprehensive metering of our electricity consumers than the DisCos. It is our hope and expectation that such metering will be achieved sooner rather than later,” ANED said.
The NERC directive only applies to MD customers and not residential customers, “NERC has made the clarification as well, which is available on their website and publicised,” it added.