Electricity distribution companies have not effectively implemented the methodology for estimated billing issued by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, the regulator has said.
The Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, NERC, Prof James Momoh, who described the methodology as a scientific method to estimate electricity consumption, said it was aimed at bringing fairness to customers who had no meters.
According to him, the provisions of the methodology require that all distribution transformers are metered so as to have a scientific means of deducting the consumption of customers who have meters from the distribution transformer meter and then share what is left appropriately to customers who have no meters.
“The Discos failed to do distribution transformer metering, which the methodology was heavily dependent on for fairness, hence the source of inaccuracy in estimated billing,” Momoh said in the January edition of NERC’s newsletter obtained by our correspondent on Sunday.
He, however, said the commission had maintained the implementation of the methodology of estimated billing and had, in some instances, sanctioned some Discos for overbilling.
According to Momoh, the Regulation on Meter Reading, Cash Collections and Credit Management (2007) states that estimated billing shall only occur where a distribution company is unable to obtain a meter reading at a customer’s premises.
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