Electricity distribution companies collected N603.64bn from customers in the second quarter of 2026 despite receiving less power from the electricity market during the period.
According to The Punch, this was contained in the latest report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, which showed that the average electricity supplied to the 11 DisCos through their trading points dropped to 3,197.03 megawatt-hours per hour in Q2.
The figure represented a 112.45MWh/h, or 3.40 per cent, reduction from the 3,309.48MWh/h recorded in the first quarter of the year.
Despite the decline, the DisCos achieved an overall offtake performance of 94.07 per cent against an available partially contracted capacity of 3,398.41MWh/h.
According to the NERC report, the DisCos received 6,982.32 gigawatt-hours of electricity during the quarter but billed customers for only 5,812.31GWh.
It stated, “This translates to an overall energy accounting efficiency of 83.24 per cent and represents a 0.24pp decrease compared to 2026/Q1 (83.48 per cent).”
The report put the value of electricity taken by the DisCos at N946.57bn, while electricity billed to customers was valued at N744.67bn.
This gave a billing efficiency of 78.67 per cent, down from 79.24 per cent in Q1.
Of the N744.67bn billed during the quarter, the DisCos recovered N603.64bn, representing a collection efficiency of 81.06 per cent.
The performance was an improvement of 2.11 percentage points over the 78.95 per cent recorded in Q1, although N141.03bn remained uncollected.
The report also put the weighted average Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection losses of the 11 DisCos at 36.23 per cent in Q2.
It stated, “The ATC&C loss of 36.23 per cent is 19.31pp higher than the 2026 MYTO target (16.92 per cent) and translates to a cumulative revenue loss of N129.07 billion across all DisCos.”
However, the loss figure improved by 1.21 percentage points compared with the 37.44 per cent recorded in Q1.
NERC said none of the DisCos met their ATC&C targets during the quarter, with Kaduna DisCo recording the worst performance relative to its target.
On their market obligations, the DisCos incurred a cumulative upstream invoice of N410.38bn during the quarter.
This comprised N326.46bn in generation costs payable to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company and N83.92bn for transmission and administrative services provided by the market operator.
The DisCos collectively paid N385.44bn, including N306.62bn to NBET and N78.82bn to the market operator, leaving an outstanding balance of N24.94bn.
Their market remittance performance stood at 93.92 per cent, slightly below the 94.08 per cent recorded in Q1.
The commission further disclosed that the Federal Government covered about 50 per cent, amounting to N321.26bn, of the total generation costs through subsidies linked to the freezing of end-user electricity tariffs at the rates applicable in July 2024.
Meanwhile, three international bilateral customers purchasing electricity from grid-connected generating companies paid $8.67m out of an $18.84m invoice issued by the market operator, representing a remittance rate of 46.02 per cent.
Domestic bilateral customers performed better, paying N6.91bn out of the N7.55bn invoiced to them, representing a remittance rate of 91.54 per cent.
