The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has disclosed that several international customers, including Ghana, Niger and Togo, owe a total of $14.19 million for electricity supplied during the first quarter of 2024. This debt has been accumulating despite ongoing efforts to recover payments from these countries.
The report states that neighboring countries and others relying on Nigeria for a portion of their power supply have not settled their outstanding bills. The Commission noted that none of the four international customers, including Benin Republic, Niger, and Togo, made any payments for the electricity supplied to them in the first quarter of 2024.
This situation comes after the federal government revealed last year that international electricity consumers owed Nigeria approximately $51.26 million for electricity exports. In response, the government instructed system operators in May to limit electricity exports to international customers to no more than 6% of total available grid generation per hour.
Despite these efforts, the debt continues to mount. The report also indicates that in the same quarter, domestic bilateral customers failed to pay a cumulative invoice of ₦1,860.11 million issued by the Market Operator for services rendered.
However, there was some progress in settling previous debts. Two international customers paid approximately $5.19 million, while eight domestic bilateral customers paid around ₦505.71 million against outstanding balances from previous quarters.
The NERC report also highlights that in the first quarter of 2024, Distribution Companies (DisCos) were invoiced a total of ₦114.12 billion for upstream services, including ₦65.96 billion for generation costs and ₦48.16 billion for transmission and administrative services. The DisCos collectively paid ₦110.62 billion, achieving a remittance performance of 96.93%, an improvement from the 69.88% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Additionally, the report points out a decline in the average available generation capacity across all power plants in Nigeria, which fell to 4,249.10MW in Q1 2024, a decrease of 13.68% compared to Q4 2023. The total electricity generation also dropped by 9.21% during this period, largely due to reduced generation capacities at 17 of the 27 grid-connected power plants.
