Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
No fewer than 100,000 prepaid meters would be rolled out to electricity consumers under the coverage area of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Plc (IBEDC) in the next one month.
The firm, which supplies energy to Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara and parts of Niger, Ekiti and Kogi States, said in a statement that the rollout of the free meters will begin from the third week of November 2020 till the end of December 2020.
The initiative is under the National Mass Metering Program (NMMP) of the federal government to install at least six million prepaid meters to households in Nigeria.
Recall that on November 1, 2020, electricity distribution companies in Nigeria were directed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to resume the implementation of the new tariff plan, which is based on service delivery.
But in order to cushion the effect of the Service Reflective Tariff (SRT) on electricity consumers in Nigeria, the government came up with the mass metering scheme.
The Chief Operating Officer of IBEDC, Engineer John Ayodele, explained that the primary objectives of the NMMP are to increase the metering rate in Nigeria, curb losses and increase financial flows to the industry at large.
“Part of the objectives also includes the elimination of estimated billing, improving network monitoring capability and strengthening the local content in meter manufacturing in Nigeria. The NMMP is expected to roll out six million meters over the next 18 to 36 months across Nigeria,” he said.
The energy expert disclosed that IBEDC, on its part, will do the metering through a series of registration and distribution points across different locations within its franchise.
This metering initiative is designed to ensure a seamless metering process that allows customers to register and be metered quickly after following the due process, he noted.
Mr Ayodele said customers who are duly registered, passed the technical evaluation and paid for the meters under the Meter Asset Provider Scheme (MAP) would get the meters in this first phase of the meter distribution.
In a different development, IBEDC has informed its customers that it has received the newly approved capping policy-order NERC/214/2020 from NERC with effect from November 1, 2020.
“The capping order would ensure that estimated billing is more equitable and just, pending the time all our customers are fully metered,” the firm said.
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