NERC to limit estimated billing by Discos to tame delays in metering customers
In view of barrage of complaints over crazy estimated bills meted out to electricity consumers by Distribution Companies (Discos), the industry regulator, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is considering putting limits on estimated billing.
Details of the new plan as contained in the ‘Consultation Paper on the Capping of Estimated Billing’ released recently showed that estimated billing introduced in 2012 is “a complete failure.”
It would be recalled that NERC had established the regulation on estimated billing methodology “to provide for the standardisation of the method used by Discos to estimate a customer’s power usage and bills accruing thereby in instances where the Disco is unable to read the customer’s bill within a billing period.”
However, NERC, in its report for the first quarter of this year, said out of the 8,135,730 registered electricity customers, only 3,434,003 (about 42 per cent) had been metered as of the end of March 2018.
In NERC’s latest consultative paper, the regulatory body averred that “It is fully aware that the Discos have contractual obligation under the privatisation programme to meter all their customers within five years as contained in the performance agreement signed with the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“This metering obligation has, however, not been fully met by the distribution companies, leading to mounting complaints on the side of the customers.”
NERC said the introduction of the Methodology for Estimated Billing (MEB), which is designed to ensure that unmetered customers are fairly billed with estimates that are scientifically derived by all standards now, has deviated from real scientific process of generation.
The Commission argued that “However, this was a complete failure owing to the Discos’ inability to effectively implement the guidelines.
“It is apparent that the prevailing regime of estimation under the commission’s approved MEB has not been effectively and accurately implemented in all the distribution licensees. This has led to considerable burden being placed on unmetered customers, who ultimately are beset with outrageous and very high estimated bills that are not objectively determined,” NERC observed.
Business Hilights gathered that the purpose of the consultation paper is to solicit comments from stakeholders on the setting aside of the existing estimated billing methodology and explore various options provided in the document to cap the monthly estimated bills issued to customers in line with the previous charge(s) applicable to the different tariff classes.
The agency made it clear that going forward, the average energy as provided for in the Multi-Year Tariff Order, 2015 for each Disco would form the basis for computing the maximum cap for each category of customers to be affected.
NERC also explained that the variables to be considered under this option are tariff class, customer numbers under each tariff class, proportion of number of customers per tariff class to the total number of customers, annual consumption in gigawatts, and annual consumption in kilowatts, among others.
On option two, NERC said “Option two takes into consideration actual energy delivered to metered customers as the basis for deriving the caps of the various categories of unmetered customers. In arriving at the capped figure, the energy consumed by the metered customers is subtracted from the total energy delivered and forms the basis for determining the caps.”
