The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has reported that none of the four international bilateral customers supplied by Nigerian power generation companies made any payments against the cumulative invoice of $14.19 million for the first quarter of 2024.
According to the NERC report, Nigeria exports electricity to neighboring countries including Benin, Togo, and Niger. The international customers with outstanding payments are:
Para-SBEE in Benin Republic: $3.15 million
Transcorp-SBEE in Benin Republic: $4.46 million
Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo: $1.21 million
Odukpani-CEET in Togo: $5.36 million
The report reveals that none of these customers made payments for the electricity supplied to them. “In 2024/Q1, none of the four international bilateral customers serviced by the Market Operator (MO) made any payment against the $14.19 million invoice issued to them by the MO for services rendered,” the report states.
Similarly, no payments were made by bilateral customers within Nigeria against the cumulative invoice of ₦1,860.11 million issued for the same period. However, the report notes that payments were made for previous quarters. Two international bilateral customers paid approximately $5.19 million, and eight bilateral customers within Nigeria paid around ₦505.71 million.
For the first quarter of 2024, Distribution Companies (DisCos) were billed a total of ₦114.12 billion for upstream services, which included ₦65.96 billion for generation costs and ₦48.16 billion for transmission and administrative services. The DisCos collectively paid ₦110.62 billion, leaving an outstanding balance of ₦3.50 billion. This resulted in a remittance performance of 96.93%, a notable improvement from the 69.88% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The report also highlighted a decrease in the average available generation capacity across all power plants in Nigeria, which dropped to 4,249.10 MW in Q1 2024. This represents a decrease of 13.68% (673.16 MW) from the 4,922.26 MW recorded in Q4 2023. The decline was attributed to reduced generation capacities at 17 of the 27 grid-connected power plants.
“In Q1 2024, the average hourly generation of available units decreased by 8.22% (-364.25 MWh/h) from 4,433.82 MWh/h in Q4 2023 to 4,069.57 MWh/h. The total electricity generated in the quarter also decreased by 9.21% (-901.94 GWh) from 9,789.87 GWh in Q4 2023 to 8,887.93 GWh,” the report explains. The decrease in gross energy generation was primarily due to reduced capacities of the grid-connected power plants.
Last year, the federal government reported that international electricity consumers failed to pay approximately $51.26 million for electricity exported from Nigeria.
