The Managing Director of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Ernest Mupwaya said his company has installed 88,000 meters and would install 120,000 units by December 2017 to tackle complaints on estimated billing, DailyTrust reports.

Mr Mupwaya said this at the opening of a two-day workshop on energy theft for judges within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Highlights:

• He said, “The issue slowing down metering is funding constraint in the electricity market but we have found a way around it. We have used the vendor financing system to acquire 120,000 meters and if they are deployed and protected from energy theft, we can gain more funding and meter more customers.”
• He also said out of the 800,000 customer base, AEDC has metered 3,800 who are the largest power users and constitutes 50 percent of the revenue collection base, including the governments’ Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
• To make meters more available, he said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has proposed a revival of the Credited Advanced Payment for Metering Initiative (CAPMI) where customers buy meters at designated shops around the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) and have them installed with a refund.
• He said while the DisCos seek cost reflective tariff to enable them to make more investments including metering, customers would want to be meter first before they would support any tariff increase.
• On the DisCo’s achievements, the AEDC boss said NERC ranked the DisCo as the best in the third quarter of 2016 after considering various parameters including governance and network improvement.
• In the remittance of the monthly energy collection, Mupwaya said AEDC has been the first and the highest remitter in the last two years while ensuring that it improves its networks by installing over 200 transformers across Kogi, Abuja, Nasarawa and Niger states.