AGS NEWS – The Federal Government has allocated N21 billion under the Presidential Metering Initiative to provide free meters to unmetered power users across Nigeria.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) announced this on Friday through order NERC/2024/072, titled “Order on the Operationalisation of ‘Tranche A’ of the Meter Acquisition Fund”.

NERC stated that the fund will expedite meter deployment, reduce commercial and collection losses for power distribution companies, improve service quality, and enhance customer satisfaction.

The funds, totaling NGN21,864,851,725 as of April 2024, will be distributed pro rata to the contributions made by the Discos under the first tranche of the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF) scheme.

The meters provided under this initiative will be free for customers.

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Effective from June 13, 2024, this order is part of NERC’s broader efforts to close the national metering gap, which exceeds seven million customers.

Previous regulations like the Meter Asset Provider Regulations 2018 and the National Mass Metering Regulations 2021 have not fully addressed the gap due to financing challenges faced by distribution companies.

The Meter Acquisition Fund aims to overcome these financial hurdles by creating a reliable revenue stream to secure long-term financing for meter deployment.

A competitive bidding process for meter procurement was conducted on May 21, 2024, involving 24 Meter Asset Providers (MAPs) across 12 Discos, with 44 bids submitted for 10-meter specifications.

NERC also deregulated meter prices under the MAP scheme to ensure efficient pricing and responsive adjustments to macroeconomic changes.

This initiative is expected to close the metering gap within three years using smart metering technologies for data analytics.