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DisCos’ market receipts for June stood at N26.8bn  

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Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) market receipts for June stood at N26.811 billion, the Head of Corporate Communications, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET), Ms Henrietta Ighomrore, announced in a statement in Abuja, on Thursday.

The Market Receipt (MR) payment is received for grid distributed electricity in the Nigerian power sector.

NBET named the EKO Electricity Distribution Company as the highest remitter in the June 2021 Electricity Market Payment.

Ighomrore said information showed that no DisCo met the 100 per cent mark, however EKO DisCos came close with a 93.4 per cent remittance of its market receipts.

According to her, the June 2021 market receipts from the DisCos totalled N26.811 billion, with the top three remitters being EKO, Abuja and Port Harcourt DisCos with 93.4 per cent, 86.6 per cent and 76.4 per cent. respectively.

She said that the June 2021 market payment had been disbursed to the Generating Companies (GenCos) in proportion to their invoice.

NBET remains committed to ensuring timely and efficient payments to GenCos to enable the generators fulfil their obligations and maintain sustainable supply of electricity to the grid, she added.

Ighomrore also stated that NBET was engaging with all stakeholders in the value chain, to ensure payment improvement and viability of the Nigerian electricity market.

According to her, NBET is the administrator of the national power pool and the financial flow in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) and that NBET had consistently demonstrated efficiency and transparency in the administration of the financial flow.

She stated that the company’s goal was to ensure efficient transactions in the Nigerian power sector and support its growth and viability.

“The NBET implements the Minimum Remittance Order issued by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to all DisCos; which sets the minimum percentage payment each DISCO is to remit to NBET on a month-to- month basis.

“NBET has continued to deploy strategies and initiatives to enhance market liquidity in the sector, through improving payments to the generation companies, supported by its power sector reform programme and the market discipline committee,” she said.

She recalled that in 2016 when generation capacity was greatly threatened due to shortage of gas and inability of some GenCos to meet their immediate obligations, NBET had swung into action with the conceptualisation and implementation of its N701.9 billion Payment Assurance Facility (PAF).

“This was efficiently managed and disbursed from January 2017 till December 2018, resulting in a quantum leap of 6500 Mega Watts (MW) generation capacity to a 7659MW at the end of the PAF.

” The success of the N701.9 billion PAF led to sustainable generation capacity and increased available electricity, this success led to the birth of PAF 11.

“The implementation of PAF 11, a N600 billion facility for 2019/2020 later metamorphosed into the Power Sector Reform Programme”, she said.

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Nigeria commits $3bn to power transmission, distribution  

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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that revenues collected by electricity Distribution Companies (Discos) increased by 63 per cent because of reforms carried out in the power sector.

The reforms, he said, included the introduction of Service-Based Tariff (SBT).

Osinbajo make the remarks in a paper on “Strategic Responses of the Energy Sector to COVID-19 Impacts on African Economies,” at the 14th annual conference of the Nigerian Association of Energy Economics (NAEE).

The vice president said with increasing funding, the power sector would soon be fully financed by the market, rather than government subsidies.

Although, it remains debatable if the rising revenues accruing to the Discos have reflected in the supply of electricity to Nigerians.

Osinbajo did not mention the new monthly collection, but the Discos posted a record N44.5 billion revenue collection in September 2020, the highest ever recorded by the power distributors, a month after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directed banks to take over the collection of revenues from the Discos.

He said in collaboration with the private sector, efforts to invest $3 billion in revamping the distribution and transmission networks were on-going.

The vice president, who was represented by Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure, Mr. Ahmad Zakari, stated, “Electricity tariff reforms with the service-based tariff have increased collections from the electricity sector by 63 per cent, increasing revenue assurance for gas producers and stabilising the value chain.

“It is anticipated that all electricity market revenues will be obtained from the market with limited subsidies as reforms in metering and efficiency with the Discos continue to improve.

“There is accelerated investment in transmission and distribution (over $3 billion) infrastructure that will put Nigeria on a path to 10GW+ and beyond through interventions with the CBN, the Siemens partnership, the World Bank, and African Development Bank and others.”

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DisCos to replace faulty and obsolete meters – NERC

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Loveth Okoli

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said that Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) would replace faulty and obsolete meters for their customers.

The commission made this known in Order No. NERC/246/2021 signed by its Chairman , Mr Sanusi Garba and Mr Dafe Akpeneye, Commissioner Legal, Licensing and compliance on its website in Abuja.

NERC said that the Order No. NERC/246/2021 took effect from March 4.

“DisCos may replace faulty/obsolete meters under the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) but must be done in strict compliance with the Metering Code and other regulatory instruments of NERC, ‘’ it said.

According to NERC, the commission started receiving complaints from metered end-use customers in the fourth quarter of 2020.

It said the period was when all stakeholders were preparing for the implementation of the NMMP.

NERC said the complaint by customers was that they had been served meter replacement notices by DisCos.

The commission said that it had reviewed the customer complaints adding that  DisCos were responsible for the installation and replacement of meters for end use customers.

It ordered DisCos to grant priority to the metering of unmetered customers under the NMMP.

“The Commission shall be copied on all replacement notices issued to end-use customers for the purpose of conducting random reviews of the replacement exercise.

“ New meters must be installed upon the removal of the faulty/obsolete meter.

“And under no circumstances shall the customer be placed on estimated billing on account of the DisCo’s failure to install a replacement meter after the removal of the faulty/obsolete meter,’’ NERC said.

It said that the customer and DisCos representative should  jointly note the units on the meter being replaced and the customer must be credited with the units within 48 hours after installation of the meter.

NERC said that customers should  only be billed for loss of revenue where the DisCos established meter tampering, by-pass or unauthorised access as contained in NERC Order/REG/ 41/2017 on Unauthorised Access, Meter Tampering and Bypass.

The commission said that activation tokens should  be issued to customers immediately after replacement of the faulty/obsolete meter.

It said that  DisCos should  file monthly returns with the commission on the replacement of faulty/obsolete meters along with their proposal for the  decommissioned meters.

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Schneider Electric moves to boost DISCOS’ fix energy

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By Moses Uwagbale

Schneider Electric has developed intelligent equipment that will help electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) and others to fix major faults in the nation’s grid system and restore power after disruption within minutes.

The equipment is known as “Self-Healing Grid’’ solution with minimal human intervention, the leading digital transformation, energy management and automation giant said.

The Head of Offer, Strategy and Business Development, Schneider Electric, Mr Ifeanyi Odoh, who made the disclosure on Sunday said the company had also held a one-day utility end- user training organised in collaboration with Bolarmark Engineering Ltd. in Lagos.

Odoh said the products which include the Smart Ringmaster (RTU T300 & SCADA); Pix Rof and Auto-Reclosers would also be useful to other stakeholders in the power sector.

“What we have done basically is to provide more intelligent and advanced equipment that enables systems to be smart grid ready and to be able to at the basic level, restore service operation automatically within seconds needing less human intervention.

“As such, it reduces operational downtime of DISCOs) to less than a minute,’’ he said in a statement.

According to Odoh, the new solutions will save DISCOs significant operational costs, time and money. With the aid of equipment such as the Ringmaster RMU, switchgears, transformers, transient or passive faults which occur 75 per cent of the time, will be addressed. This will save downtime for DISCOs.

“Take for example, you are driving and you knock down a pole, the system will isolate the line feeding that particular point as close as possible, localise the fault and restore power to the rest of the community not affected so that only that particular pole would then be localised or separated for manual intervention.’’

He also disclosed that the training had over 30 participants from about five electricity distribution companies and other stakeholders in attendance.

The participants were drawn from Eko, Ikeja Abuja Ibadan Lagos State Electricity Board, Viathan Utility and  Bolamark Engineering Ltd.

It centred on improving the grid reliability and efficiency, getting DISCOs to improve on System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and System Average Frequency Index (SAFI).

It also examined improving energy efficiency to minimise technical and non-technical losses and distributed energy resource integration to enhance grid stability and accommodate alternative sources of energy like solar, wind, gas among others.

The Head Channel Marketing, Omobolanle Omotayo, said the solutions would benefit not just the DISCOs but also consumers with the aid of smart devices such as efficient utility meters, sensors and release devices connected to software that could be read on mobile devices, or on the web and managed remotely to reduce the face to face time.

The statement said that PAE and Product Manager for Schneider Electric, Moyosore Oyefuga, while speaking, noted that the new equipment would bring extra level of visibility on the network so that DISCOs could accurately improve their forecast and make more informed decisions.

He explained that the equipment would help to reduce the issue of load shedding by the companies.

““With the kind of automations we bring, some loads could be deferred if for any reason, DISCOs realise that there is a little bit more demand than supply or vice versa.’’