The Federal Government is to pay approximately N26.14 billion monthly to the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) as subsidy benefits to customers under its franchise, effective from September 1, 2024.
This was contained in the Supplementary Multi-Year Tariff Order (MY TO) for September 2024 released by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
The tariff review indices adopted in the Order show that the Commission left Band A tariff unchanged at N209/Kw/h. Bands B – E tariffs also remained frozen at the rate payable since December 2022.
NERC said, “In line with the policy direction of the federal government on electricity subsidy, the allowed tariffs for Bands B-E customer categories shall remain frozen at the rates payable since December 2022 subject to further policy direction by the government”.
It said, “With this policy, the estimated subsidy benefit customers under Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) franchise in 2024 is approximately N26.4billion monthly.”
Meanwhile, the Commission fined AEDC N1.69 billion owing to non-compliance with the capping of estimated bills and subsequent petition hearings and review of data.
It said, “Pursuant to the commission’s Order NERC/2024/114 on non-compliance with the capping of estimated bills and subsequent petition hearings and review of data further provided by AEDC, the Commission has approved the deduction of N1.69billion from the total OPEX of AEDC effective from September 2024, being the 10% of the over billed amount by AEDC for the period covering January to September 203.”
Furthermore, the Commission said, AEDC is obligated to publish daily on its website a rolling 7-day average daily hours of supply on each Band A feeder no later than 09:00 am of the next day.
It said, “where AEDC fails to deliver on the committed level of service on a Band A feeder for consecutive two days, AEDC shall on the next day by 10.00 am publish on its website an explanation of the reasons for the failure and update the affected customers on the timeline for restoration of service to the committed service level”.
NERC, however, disclosed that the “AEDC is obligated by the Order to procure minimum of 61MW capacity of embedded generation, being 10% of its 2024 load allocation, to improve the reliability of supply and sustain delivery of a minimum service level under the SBT. A minimum of 30MW (50%) of the embedded generation capacity must be sourced from renewable energy sources”.
It said, the required capacity may be procured in bulk or distributed capacities across AEDC’s Franchise area, noting that the capacity to be procured should be ready for dispatch to the AEDC’s network by the 1st of April 2025.
