- Electricity supply in Nigeria declined by 1.74% over the past year but rose on a quarterly basis as DisCos generated N247.33 billion in Q1 2023.
- The customer base for DisCos increased by 0.40%, with Ibadan disco having the largest customer base and number of metered customers.
- President Tinubu signed the Nigeria Electricity bill into law, granting state governments and private individuals the power to generate and distribute electricity within areas covered by the national grid.
Recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that electricity supply over the past twelve months (from the 1st quarter of 2022 to 1st quarter of 2023) declined by 1.74% to 5,852 (Gwh) from 5,956 (Gwh).
However, on a quarterly basis, electricity supply rose from 5,611 (Gwh) in the last quarter of 2022 to 5,852 (Gwh) in the first three months of 2023.
Revenues of Discos
In terms of revenue in Q1 of 2023, Distribution companies generated N247.33 billion in the first three months of the year- representing a N15 billion difference from the N232 billion generated between October and December of 2022.
When compared with the corresponding quarter of 2022, there was a 20.81% increase from the N204.7 billion generated.
Ikeja Disco recorded the most revenue for the quarter grossing around N49 billion followed by Eko and Abuja Discos with N41.7 billion and N38.1 billion respectively.
Number of customers
The customer base for discos rose by 0.40% from 5.93 million in Q4 2022 to 5.96 million from January to March. Compared to the same quarter last year, customers rose from 5.84 million to their current figure.
Ibadan Disco had the largest customer base with around 2.2 million customers followed by Abuja and Benin Discos with 1.32 million and 1.2 million customers respectively.
Ibadan Disco also had the largest number of metered customers followed by Ikeja and Abuja discos.
Recent Development in the Electricity sector
Electricity has been a major bottleneck to Nigeria’s industrialization. The country has a total installed capacity of 10,396MW of electricity but only manages to transmit around 5000 Mega-Watts- just around half of its capacity.
To reverse this trend, President Tinubu signed into law the Nigeria Electricity Bill which provides among other powers of state government and private individuals to generate and distribute electricity within areas covered by the national grid
