FG Increases Electricity Tariff for Customers in Band A
According to the NERC Vice Chairman, the commission has degraded some Band A consumers to Band B since the electrical distribution firm failed to meet the requisite hours of electricity.
The federal government has significantly increased the electricity tariff for customers in Band A.
Those in Band A get 20 hours of power per day.
Musliu Oseni, the Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), announced the hike at a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday. Customers will now pay 225 kilowatts per hour, an increase from the current 66.
These consumers, according to Oseni, account for fifteen percent of the twelve million people that use power in the nation.
He went on to say that the commission had demoted some Band A consumers to Band B because the electricity distribution business had failed to meet the requisite numbers of hours of power.
We will be reducing our present number of 800 feeders classified as Band A to less than 500. Since then, 17% have been upgraded to Band-A feeder status. Fifteen percent of the total electrical consumers linked to these feeders are served by them.
“A 235 kilowatt per hour has been authorised by the commission in an order titled April supplementary order.”
He clarified that the review won’t have any bearing on Band X buyers.
Power providers can increase tariffs for urban consumers from N68 per kilowatt-hour to N200 ($0.15) per kilowatt-hour, according to Bloomberg on Tuesday.
According to those in the presidency who are aware of the situation, the goal is to reduce spending on tariff subsidies (approximately $2.3 billion) and to entice new investment.
In a change from the previous rate of $2.18 MMBtu, the news agency reports that “Nigerians would now have to pay $2.42 per one million British thermal units.”
This rise is in response to the announcement of a hike in the price of natural gas to electricity made on Monday by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
Grid Failure
For the second time this year, the national grid went down a week ago, plunging the country into darkness.
February 4 was the date of the initial incident.
The energy sector in Nigeria has been plagued by problems caused by the country’s rapidly expanding population for many years.
According to data provided by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the grid went down at approximately 4:00 pm, dropping from 2,984 MW to zero in one hour. By 5:00 pm, all 21 plants that were connected to the grid had stopped operating.
After verifying that the present power outage was caused by a system failure from the national grid, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) issued a statement pleading with customers for understanding.
In a post on its X handle, AEDC explained that the interruption that is affecting its franchise region was caused by a system failure that occurred at approximately 16:28 hours today, 28 March 2024.
“Anyone involved is working tirelessly to get supplies back to normal, so we ask that you please be patient.”
With an estimated 92 million people without access to power, Nigeria ranked last in the world for energy access in the 2022 Energy Progress Report published by Tracking SDG 7.