NERC Report Uncovers DISCos Abandon Metering of Consumers
NERC Report Uncovers DISCos Abandon Metering of Consumers
A recent report from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has revealed that electricity distribution companies (DisCos) have largely abandoned their primary responsibility of metering customers.
According to the data, DisCos funded only 90,172 meters nationwide between 2019 and the third quarter of 2025, a figure that highlights a significant failure to close the country’s widening metering gap.
Despite regulatory mandates requiring utilities to provide meters at no cost to consumers, the pace of installation has slowed to a crawl, with DisCos funding only 131 meters across the entire country in the third quarter of 2025.
The report highlights a stark disparity in performance among the various utilities, with the majority of installations driven by only two companies: Ibadan and Jos Electricity Distribution Companies. In contrast, seven major DisCos including Eko, Ikeja, Abuja, and Port Harcourt recorded zero meter installations under the DisCo-financed model during the third quarter of 2025.
This collective inaction has forced the burden of metering onto other frameworks, particularly the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme, which requires customers to pay for their own meters upfront despite ongoing disputes regarding promised refunds via energy credits.
Currently, Nigeria’s metering rate stands at just 55.37%, with only 6.66 million out of 12.03 million registered customers having functional meters.
To address this deficit, the sector has become increasingly reliant on alternative funding sources, such as the World Bank-backed Distribution Sector Recovery Programme and the Meter Acquisition Fund.
While these programs have helped deploy thousands of units, they represent a shift away from the original service model where the utilities themselves were expected to bear the cost of infrastructure for their customers.
NERC has expressed serious concern over this trend, warning that the lack of adequate metering continues to fuel disputes over estimated billing and deepens commercial losses within the power sector.
The commission emphasized that the failure of DisCos to prioritize customer enumeration and meter deployment is a major hurdle to the industry’s financial health. Moving forward, the regulator maintains that accelerated metering is essential to boosting revenue collection and reducing the technical and collection losses that currently plague the Nigerian electricity market.
