The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, says the country’s Electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos, rejected 114.53 megawatt-hours per hour of electricity from generation companies despite 86 million Nigerians lacking access to power.
NERC disclosed this in its latest report for the Second Quarter of 2023.
The report showed that all 11 power distribution companies in Nigeria accepted less electricity than their contracted capacities, resulting in an average cumulative load rejection of 114.53 MWh/h.
This load rejection occurred amid power outages in some locations in Nigeria despite electricity gulping N135 billion in Q2 2023.
In the period under review, the collective average energy offtake of the 11 Discos amounted to 3,251.31 MWh/h, while their available partially contracted capacity stood at 3,365.84 MWh/h.
“This structure is consistent with international best practices for long-term contract-based power procurement and ensures that Gencos (generation companies) earn capacity payments to compensate them for availability.
“To curtail this practice, the commission included load offtake as a key metric in its KPI Order—Order on Performance Monitoring Framework (NERC/316-326/2022), issued to Discos effective October 2022.
“The order provides that persistent load non-offtake to certain thresholds may trigger regulatory actions against the management of the Discos,” the NERC stated.
It added that “in 2023/Q2, the average energy offtake by Discos at their trading points was 3,251.31 MWh/h, and it shows a decrease of -218.82 MWh/h (-6.31 per cent) when compared to 3,470.13 MWh/h offtake in 2023/Q1.
“During the quarter, all the Discos took less than their available PCC except Eko Disco, which recorded an offtake performance of 116.90 per cent and will benefit from reduced wholesale energy costs.”
