The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has extended the deadline for meter upgrades from distribution companies, DisCos, to their customers on January 1, 2025, after which they risk sanction
Recall that the regulatory agency had given November 24 as the deadline for this process but the DisCos failed to meet a certain percentage of the target population for the scheme.
The metering programme is set to be upgraded from Unistar to Standard Transfer Specifications, STS, meters by the DisCos for all their customers.
It was learned that there are no official figures of the percentage of Nigerians that had complied with the directive, out of the 6.1 million metered customers from the 13.3 million registered electricity customers in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI.
NERC, on its X handle, gave the ultimatum during the fourth guarter of 2024 NESI stakeholders meeting.
The regulatory body vowed to impose penalties on any defaulting DisCos
It said in a statement: “NERC has directed DISCOs to rapidly conclude the migration of STS-Meters for all their customers to prevent disruption of service.
“During the Q4 NESI stakeholders meeting, the commission warned that daily penalties would be imposed for each meter not migrated effective from 1st January 2025.”
The commission placed the responsibility of the DisCos to replace all obsolete/faulty meters within their franchise, insisting that DisCos are neither allowed to charge customers for the replacement of these meters nor transfer customers to estimated billing.
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