DisCos abandon metering responsibility, NERC report reveals

Electrical energy distribution firms funded solely 90,172 meters nationwide between 2019 and the third quarter of 2025, in line with the Nigerian Electrical energy Regulatory Fee’s Third Quarter 2025 report, underscoring their restricted contribution to closing Nigeria’s widening metering hole.

This means that the DisCos seem to have deserted one in all their duties, which is metering all eligible clients. Stakeholders have argued that it’s the duty of the DisCos to meter their clients without charge to them.

Nevertheless, this has remained a significant problem, because the utilities made clients pay for meters with guarantees that they might be refunded. Many shoppers have argued they weren’t refunded via power credit score, whereas some decried their lack of ability to safe meters after making funds.

Knowledge from the NERC report confirmed that meters put in immediately underneath the DisCo-Financed Framework accounted for under a marginal share of whole installations over the six-year interval, regardless of repeated regulatory directives requiring operators to speed up buyer metering.

The fee disclosed that 57,007 meters have been put in between 2019 and 2023 underneath the framework, whereas 31,622 meters have been added in 2024. The tempo slowed sharply in 2025, with DisCos funding simply 1,178 meters within the first quarter, 234 within the second quarter, and 131 within the third quarter.

The figures revealed that metering underneath the DisCo-financed mannequin was pushed virtually totally by two firms. Ibadan Electrical energy Distribution Firm recorded a cumulative whole of 37,156 meters.

Of this quantity, 36,911 meters have been put in between 2019 and 2023, adopted by 84 meters in 2024, 111 within the first quarter of 2025, and 50 within the second quarter of the 12 months.

Jos Electrical energy Distribution Plc recorded the very best whole installations underneath the framework, with 52,174 meters deployed between 2019 and 2025. The corporate put in 31,442 meters in 2024 alone, adopted by 1,067 meters within the first quarter of 2025, 184 meters within the second quarter, and 131 meters within the third quarter.

Different DisCos posted negligible figures. Enugu Electrical energy Distribution Firm put in 597 meters, all between 2019 and 2023. Kaduna Electrical energy Distribution Firm put in 149 meters in 2024, whereas Kano Electrical energy Distribution Firm deployed 96 meters in the identical 12 months.

Eko, Aba, Abuja, Benin, Ikeja, Port Harcourt, and Yola electrical energy distribution firms recorded zero meter installations underneath the DisCo-financed mannequin as of the tip of the third quarter of 2025. In whole, DisCos funded solely 131 meters within the third quarter of 2025, representing simply 0.06 per cent of the 228,614 meters put in throughout all metering frameworks in the course of the interval.

The report confirmed that the majority meter deployments throughout Q3 2025 have been executed via various schemes. A complete of 176,302 meters have been put in underneath the Meter Asset Supplier framework, 44,104 meters underneath the Vendor-Financed framework, and seven,902 meters via the Distribution Sector Restoration Programme supported by the World Financial institution.

NERC mentioned, “Out of the 228,614 end-use clients metered in 2025/Q3, 176,302 (77.12 per cent) of consumers have been metered underneath the Meter Asset Supplier framework, 44,104 (25.01 per cent) have been metered underneath the Vendor Financed framework, 7,902 (3.46 per cent) have been metered underneath the Distribution Sector Restoration Programme, 175 (0.08 per cent) have been metered underneath the Meter Acquisition Fund and 131 (0.06 per cent) have been metered underneath the DisCo Financed framework.”

As of the tip of September 2025, the fee mentioned 6.66 million out of 12.03 million lively registered electrical energy clients had been metered nationwide, translating to a metering charge of 55.37 per cent. The regulator defined that the Meter Acquisition Fund was launched in February 2023 via a metering surcharge embedded in allowed tariffs.

Kaduna Electrical energy Distribution Firm put in 175 meters underneath the scheme within the third quarter of 2025, bringing whole installations underneath Tranche A to 107,461 meters. Tranche A closed in June 2025, whereas Tranche B was operationalised in October 2025, permitting DisCos to entry N28bn for metering Bands A and B clients.

NERC additionally reiterated that the Distribution Sector Restoration Programme, backed by a $500m World Financial institution mortgage, targets the deployment of three.2 million sensible meters nationwide. It added that meter installations underneath the programme, which commenced in Might 2025, stood at 7,902 by the tip of the third quarter.

The fee warned that insufficient metering continued to gasoline disputes over estimated billing and deepen business losses within the energy sector, stressing that improved buyer enumeration and accelerated meter deployment have been crucial to boosting income assortment and decreasing mixture technical, business, and assortment losses throughout the electrical energy market.