By SUNDAY ABBA, Abuja
Electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and international customer nations failed to fully meet their remittance obligations to the Nigerian electricity Supply Industry (NESI), even as the Ajaokuta Steel Company (ASC) in Kogi State defaulted in paying its electricity bills in the second quarter (Q2) of 2025.
The industry’s Quarterly Report released by the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC or The Commission) for the period revealed shortfalls from both sides in excess of ₦20 billion and $8.5million, respectively.
The international customers in the power market are electricity off-takers outside Nigeria who receive power through cross-border supply arrangements.
They include Société Nigerienne d’Electricité (NIGELEC) – Niger Republic; Compagnie Energie Electrique du Togo (CEET) – Togo; Communauté Electrique du Bénin (CEB) – Benin Republic; and Electricité de Guinée (EDG) – Republic of Guinea.
They receive electricity exported from Nigeria through the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) under international bilateral agreements.
According to NERC’s 2025 Second Quarter Report, the total cumulative upstream invoice payable by DisCos stood at ₦417.35bn, comprising ₦348.66bn for generation costs from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) and ₦68.68bn for transmission and administrative services provided by the Market Operator (MO).
However, the DisCos collectively remitted ₦399.20bn to NBET and ₦65.30bn to the MO, which left an outstanding balance of ₦18.15bn.
This translated to a remittance performance of 95.65 per cent, slightly lower than the 95.86 per cent recorded in the first quarter (Q1) of 2025, according to the report.
Similarly, during the period under review, the six international bilateral customers who purchased power directly from grid-connected generation companies (GenCos) paid only $9.015m out of the $17.54m invoice issued to them by the market operator, reflecting a remittance rate of just 51.33 per cent.
Domestic bilateral customers also performed poorly, remitting only ₦1.40bn of the ₦2.80bn billed for services rendered within the same period. This is a collection rate of 50.10 per cent.
However, NERC reported that the DisCos’ overall billing efficiency improved marginally in Q2 2025, standing at 81.61 per cent, while collection efficiency rose to 76.07 per cent, a 1.68 percentage point increase from Q1.
During this period, the Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collection (ATC&C) losses remained high at 37.92 per cent, well above the 2025 Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) target of 20.54 per cent.
According to the report, all DisCos except Eko failed to meet their ATC&C loss targets, with Kaduna DisCo recording the poorest performance, posting a staggering 70.98 per cent loss against a target of 21.32 per cent.
Despite a marginal 1.69 percentage point improvement from the previous quarter, the high losses translated into a cumulative revenue loss of ₦158.05bn across all DisCos in the quarter under review.
On the Ajaokuta debt, NERC reported that the company and its host community failed to make any payment towards their electricity bills totalling ₦1.39bn in the second quarter.
The Commission explained that the special customer owed ₦1.27bn to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) and ₦0.12bn to the Market Operator (MO) during the period.
The SUMMIT POST reports that the Ajaokuta Steel, a gigantic project, was conceived conceived over four decades ago to drive Nigeria’s industrialisation, but has never been completed to produce steel even as it continues to incur energy and other costs.
Efforts to revive the plant have faced multiple setbacks, ranging from funding to policy inconsistencies and neglect of the various governments.