BREAKING NEWS, Power
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The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company is proposing to spend N25 billion for investment in the South-East zone for better services
THE Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, has earmarked the N25 billion for investment in Geographic Information System, GIS, and enumeration of customers and assets in its license area in the South-East zone. The sum, according to the EEDC, would cover transformers, construction of relief substations and network expansion.
The company, however, attributed the present delay in the roll-out of its metering programme in the five states of the South-East zone to the high incidence of meter by-pass and tampering by consumers in the affected states.
Robertson Dickerman, managing director, EEDC, told customers during a consultative meeting in Enugu on Sunday, August 23, that the new meters needed to be designed to check the incessant bye-pass and tampering.
The consultative meeting, he said, had taken the company to all the states of the South-East, adding that it was also a requirement from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC. He disclosed that the EEDC had started procurement and installation of meters for its maximum-demand customers, adding that procurement and installation of pre-paid meters for its single-phase and three-phase customers had advanced.
Dickerman said the EEDC was poised to continue to provide effective services to all electricity consumers in the zone and that it had made huge investments to reduce aggregate technical, commercial and collective losses as well as address customers’ complaints.
On the issue of fixed charge, the company explained that it was necessary component of electricity tariffs, adding that it would support capacity charges for the generation companies as well as capital, maintenance and fixed costs of other electricity market participants.
He told the electricity consumers that the consultative meeting was borne out of the need to get customers’ input in the proposed tariff review, stressing that the review was crucial to the sustainability of the entire electricity business chain. “Since electricity generation companies and Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, do not charge customers directly for their services, the tariffs charged by every distribution company must support the effective operations of the distribution company, Transmission Company and Generation Company,” Dickerman said.
According to the EEDC boss, on the average, 60 percent of the amount billed to each customer was for generation companies, 15 percent for the transmission and other service providers, while 25 percent was for the operation of the distribution company. “We think that the best thing you can do to support the increases to electricity generation and transmission capacity in Nigeria is to allow appropriate tariffs and to pay the bills in full. This will enable the EEDC to pay the generation and transmission companies so as to enable them make required investments or raise the capital needed to do so. The absence of cost-reflective tariffs and non-payment of bills by some customers is preventing Nigeria from receiving the additional generation and transmission capacity that we all need,” he said.
Dickerman further disclosed that part of the ongoing tariffs review exercise was to disaggregate some tariffs classes so that some customers could receive tariffs that better suited their needs and create an opportunity to reduce fixed charges for some customers’ classes. He explained that the EEDC proposed tariff review would be for a period of 10 years from 2015 to 2025, adding that the company would also avoid tariff shock by deferring some of its allowable revenue in the early years to later years.
— Aug 24, 2015 @ 12:45 GMT
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