NERC, SERCs and the Great Regulatory Turf War: Who Regulates What, in Plain English

Nigeria currently has one electricity problem and, depending on how you count, seventeen (17) electricity regulators. Sixteen (16) States have taken over regulation of their electricity markets, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (“NERC”) remains firmly in place at the centre, and somewhere in between sits a generating company holding a NERC licence, staring at a letter from a State Electricity Regulatory Commission (“SERC”) asking why it has not applied for another licence.

If you are confused, you are in excellent company. Investors are confused. DisCos are confused. Judges are being taken through seminars so that they will not be confused. Even the regulators occasionally look confused, although they are far too professional to admit it.

So let us do what we did with the net billing regulations: strip away the noise, read the actual instruments, and answer the only question anyone really cares about. Who regulates what?