Nigerians will have to pay more to get electricity meters as the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has announced deregulation for meters deployed to electricity consumers under the Meter Asset Providers scheme.
The Commission disclosed this on Monday in an order signed by its Chairman, Sanusi Garba and Commissioner Legal, Licensing and Compliance, Dafe Akpeneye.
The Commission said this is to enable end-use electricity customers to acquire meters from MAPs of their choice based on competitive open market prices.
The implication is that customers paying CAP prices of N81,975.16 and N143,836.16 for single and three-phase meters, respectively, will have to pay more at a price determined by the meter providers.
“The cost of prices of meters deployed under the MAP scheme is hereby deregulated to enable end-use customers to acquire meters from MAPs of their choice based on competitive open market prices determined from transparent bidding frameworks,” the Commission stated.
“All MAP permit holders are subsequently eligible to provide services and transact for the provision of meters and metering services with any Disco in the Federal Republic of Nigeria with their existing permit.
“The lifting of the restriction on permitting to operate in all Discos is subject to the mandatory requirement for MAPs to comply with the associated Disco-specific requirements/specifications.
“All Discos shall ensure the effective and seamless integration of smart meters deployed by MAPs with the Disco’s head-end systems and meter data management systems,” it added.
The development comes weeks after NERC okayed an over 200 per cent tariff hike for customers getting 20 hours of power supply.