NERC Approves Methodology For Electricity Connection

The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) has approved a methodology for electricity connection and billing charges to remove charging bottlenecks between a customer and utility provider.

Dr Sam Amadi, the Chairman of NERC, who announced this on Wednesday in Abuja at a news conference, said the commission adopted the methodology to ensure that customers were not cheated by distribution companies.

According to the methodology, “no customer shall be required to pay any charge whatsoever in relation to the connection of electricity to his residence or premises, but he or she can only provide material for connection.’’

Amadi said the distribution companies were only required to give their customers the type of materials they would use for the connection.

He said a customer had the right to hire electrician to do the connection as long as “the person hired is qualified and is approved by the distribution company’’, adding that  the connection of electricity to a customer’s residence or premises should take effect within 48 hours after providing the required materials.

“The distribution licensees shall immediately provide meter and meter accessories with a view to ensuring proper accounting and billing of customer’s energy consumption.

“The payment of statutory fees on inspection and survey, testing and commissioning hitherto charged customers as Maximum Demand (MD) are hereby abolished with effect from June 1, 2012.

“The testing equipment cost has been factored in determining appropriate return on capital on the regulated assets’’ he said.

The NERC boss said the labour-related costs of inspection and commissioning had been accounted for as fixed administrative cost under approved Operating Expenses (OPEX).

He noted that the purpose of creating the framework was to remove connection bottlenecks between customers and distribution companies and ensure that customers got fair billing charges, urging customers, who were wrongly billed to formally write to their distribution companies and copy the commission for necessary action.

He said customers were required by law to pay fixed charge and energy charges, and described fixed charge as monthly service charge.

Amadi stressed that a customer with two or three phase meter would be required to pay N500 as fixed charge, while energy charge was the bill of the energy consumed.

“With this methodology, therefore, if a customer does not have electricity in his or her residence for three months for instance, he or she cannot be billed for energy consumption but must pay fixed charge,’’ he said.

Amadi urged vendors of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to be just in selling recharge units to customers.