The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has reported that none of the four international bilateral customers receiving electricity from Nigerian power generation companies made payments on the $14.19 million cumulative invoice issued by the market operator for services rendered during the first quarter of 2024.
According to the NERC’s report, Nigeria supplies electricity to neighboring countries, including Benin, Togo, and Niger. The international customers currently owing the Nigerian electricity supply industry include Para-SBEE in Benin Republic ($3.15 million), Transcorp-SBEE in Benin Republic ($4.46 million), Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo ($1.21 million), and Odukpani-CEET in Togo ($5.36 million).
The report clearly states, “In the first quarter of 2024, none of the four international bilateral customers serviced by the Market Operator (MO) made any payment towards the $14.19 million invoice issued to them for services rendered during the period.”
Additionally, the report highlighted that domestic bilateral customer within Nigeria also failed to make payments against the cumulative invoice of ₦1.86 billion issued by the MO for the same quarter.
Despite the non-payment by international customers for the first quarter, the report noted that some payments were made for previous outstanding quarters. Specifically, two international customers settled around $5.19 million, while eight domestic bilateral customers paid approximately ₦505.71 million.
The report further disclosed that in Q1 2024, Distribution Companies (DisCos) were billed a total of ₦114.12 billion for upstream services, comprising ₦65.96 billion for generation costs and ₦48.16 billion for transmission and administrative services. The DisCos collectively remitted ₦110.62 billion, leaving an outstanding balance of ₦3.50 billion, which resulted in a remittance performance of 96.93%, marking a notable improvement from the 69.88% recorded in Q4 2023.
However, the report also revealed a decline in the average available generation capacity across all power plants in Nigeria, which dropped to 4,249.10MW in Q1 2024, reflecting a decrease of 13.68% (or 673.16MW) compared to the 4,922.26MW recorded in Q4 2023. This reduction was attributed to decreased generation capacities in 17 of the 27 grid-connected power plants compared to the previous quarter.
The report stated, “In Q1 2024, the average hourly generation of available units decreased by 8.22% (364.25MWh/h), from 4,433.82MWh/h in Q4 2023 to 4,069.57MWh/h. The total electricity generated in the quarter also dropped by 9.21% (901.94GWh), from 9,789.87GWh in Q4 2023 to 8,887.93GWh.”
The decline in gross energy generation was primarily due to the reduced capacities of grid-connected power plants compared to the previous quarter. The report also recalled that last year, the federal government reported that international electricity consumers failed to pay approximately $51.26 million for electricity exported from Nigeria.
