The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has revealed that none of the four international customers receiving electricity from Nigerian power generation companies made any payments towards the $14.19 million invoiced for services rendered in the first quarter of 2024.
This information was disclosed in a recent report by NERC, which noted that Nigeria exports electricity to neighboring countries such as Benin, Togo, and Niger. The report identified the international customers owing the Nigerian electricity industry as Para-SBEE in Benin Republic ($3.15 million), Transcorp-SBEE in Benin Republic ($4.46 million), Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo ($1.21 million), and Odukpani-CEET in Togo ($5.36 million).
The report stated, "In 2024/Q1, none of the four (4) international bilateral customers serviced by the Market Operator made any payment against the $14.19 million invoice issued to them for services rendered in 2024/Q1."
Similarly, domestic bilateral customers also failed to make payments, leaving a cumulative unpaid invoice of N1.86 billion for the same period. However, the report noted that both international and local customers had made payments towards previous outstanding balances. Specifically, two international customers paid around $5.19 million, while eight local customers settled approximately N505.71 million.
Regarding the Nigerian Distribution Companies (DisCos), they were billed a total of N114.12 billion for upstream services during the first quarter of 2024, covering generation costs (N65.96 billion) and transmission and administrative services (N48.16 billion). The DisCos paid N110.62 billion, resulting in an outstanding balance of N3.50 billion, which represents a remittance performance of 96.93%. This marks a significant improvement from the 69.88% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The NERC report also highlighted a decline in the average available generation capacity across all power plants in Nigeria, dropping to 4,249.10 MW in Q1 2024—a 13.68% decrease from the 4,922.26 MW recorded in the previous quarter. This reduction was attributed to decreased generation capacities in 17 out of the 27 grid-connected power plants.
The report further detailed that the average hourly generation of available units decreased by 8.22% from 4,433.82 MWh/h in Q4 2023 to 4,069.57 MWh/h in Q1 2024, with total electricity generation during the quarter falling by 9.21%.
Last year, the federal government reported that international customers failed to pay approximately $51.26 million for electricity supplied from Nigeria, highlighting an ongoing issue with payments for exported electricity.
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