NERC says DisCos largely responsible for poor power supply

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) says the distribution companies (DisCos) are largely responsible for poor electricity supply to customers despite increased power generation.

The commission stated this in its newly released 2018 fourth-quarter report.

The regulator stated that the limitation in electricity distribution networks remains the biggest constraints in delivering adequate power supply to customers.

According to the data released by NERC, the generated power that is lost to gas constraints dropped to 889MW in Q4 2018 from 1,654MW in Q3 2018.

However, the percentage of generated power that is lost due to the limited distribution network increased to 58% from 50% in Q3 becoming the biggest constraint in the Nigerian electricity supply industry (NESI).

“The commission is working on addressing the DisCos—TCN interface challenges with the aim of freeing up the generation capacity constraint by addressing the bottlenecks inhibiting the flow of energy,” the new report stated.

“The commission is also committed to utilising a more robust process for the thorough technical assessment of DisCos’ utilisation of capital expenditure allowances for relevance and cost efficiency to ensure that utilities invest on projects critical to addressing their technical and operational challenges. This process is consistent with the regulatory imperative of ensuring that consumers do not pay for inefficiencies of the utilities.

“Limitation in distribution networks remained the biggest constraint to the daily generation capacity utilisation as at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018.”

In August, the NERC approved a minor review of the 2015 multi-year tariff order (MYTO) for each DisCo.

The commission said the decision made after consulting electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and stakeholders in the sector.