An Evaluation of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission Meter Asset Provider Regulations 2018
The Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 (“EPSRA”) empowers the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (“NERC”) to make regulations with a view to, amongst others, ensuring fairness, safety, security, reliability and quality of service in the production and delivery of electricity to customers. NERC, therefore, issued the Meter Asset Provider Regulations 2018 (the “MAP Regulations”) with a view to, inter alia, eliminating estimated billing and thus, engendering fairness in the industry whilst also enhancing revenue assurance in the face of the illiquidity which has pervaded the industry- especially on-grid power supply. Specifically, the MAP Regulations were issued in exercise of the powers conferred on NERC by section 96 of the EPSRA.
The increasing number of unmetered electricity customers who are continually subjected to estimated billing by the electricity distribution companies (“DisCos”) and the significance of attracting private investment to metering services in the distribution sector have made the issuance of the MAP Regulations all too important. Little wonder, also, that a bill to criminalize the use of 'estimated billing' in the calculation of electricity consumed and tariff to be paid by consumers by Discos has passed first reading in Nigeria’s House of Representatives.