DisCos Record N36bn Monthly Collection, 65% Efficiency Level
Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) said they have improved their electricity supply revenue collection to N36 billion level monthly as the efficiency of collecting monies from their customers rose to 65 per cent.
They revealed this through the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) in a recent comparative infographics obtained by Daily Trust.
ANED said the DisCos collected N422bn in 2018, up from N344bn recorded in 2017. While its collection efficiency rose to 65 per cent from 60 per cent in 2017, the Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses dropped to 49 per cent from 54 per cent, it noted.
While ANED decried the unchanged retail tariff for electricity as enforced by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) since February 2016, the DisCos’ revenue collection rose steeply to an average of N36bn monthly in 2018.
The DisCos are being operated by private investors after they were unbundled under the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and privatized along with the Generation Companies (GenCos) in 2013.
According to a revenue flow chart of operators in the Nigerian Electricity Market (NEM), the DisCos retained only 24 per cent of the tariff revenue it collect from customers who had consumed and paid for electricity.
About 60 per cent goes to the GenCos who pay for gas and their own services while the rest are for Ancillary Services Providers (ASP) that include transmission service charge/System Operation (SO), services charged for the Market Operator (MO), regulatory charge (NERC), and another charges by the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET).
The DisCos said the quantum of energy received from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) excluding Yola DisCo between October 2017 and September 2018 rose to 26,368 gigawatt hours (GWH), higher than 24,217GWH they got from October 2016 to September 2017.
Their billing also rose from 20,600GWH (representing about N650bn) in 2018 so far from 18,552GWH (about N590bn) recorded same period of 2017.
Confirming this improvement, one of the DisCos – Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) – told Daily Trust that its power supply to customers within Abuja metropolis has risen to an average of 18 hours daily.
The DisCo’s Director of Corporate Services, Mr Abimbola Odubiyi, while receiving the Senate Committee on Privatisation recently said the firm has also invested N19bn in the network since 2013.
On its ATC&C, he said the losses have reduced to 24.92 per cent as at October 2018 from about 60 per cent losses they inherited.
