N139bn Revenue Loss Hits DisCos Despite 323,864 New Meters

Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies (DisCos) recorded revenue leakages in the fourth quarter of 2025, despite the rise in metering installations during the period.

The Q4 report released by the
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) showed that DisCos lost a cumulative N139.19bn in revenue in Q4 2025 due to Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses.

This, according to the report,
stood at 34.90 per cent, which is far above the 20.54 per cent target set under the Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO).

The losses came despite improved metering efforts, with a total of 323,864 meters installed in Q4 alone, representing a 33.91 per cent increase from the 241,860 units deployed in the third quarter.

The breakdown of the metering installations showed that 176,134 meters, accounting for 54.39 per cent of total installations, were deployed under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) framework.

Other installations included 80,861 meters under the Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), 22,748 under the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF), 20,984 through vendor financing, and 4,453 via DisCo financing.

The commission stated that as of December 2025, 6.97 million out of 12.16 million registered electricity customers across the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) had been metered, translating to a metering rate of 57.27 per cent.

However, during the period, the total energy offtake by DisCos was valued at N969.19bn, out of which N795.06bn was billed to customers.

This, according to the report, resulted in a billing efficiency of 82.03 per cent, which is slightly lower than the 82.69 per cent recorded in Q3.

A further analysis of the report shows that DisCos were only able to collect N630.93bn from the billed amount, translating to a collection efficiency of 79.36 per cent, down from 80.70 per cent in the previous quarter.

The Commission explained that the combined effect of billing and collection gaps contributed to the elevated ATC&C loss of 34.90 per cent, comprising 17.97 per cent technical and commercial losses and 20.64 per cent collection losses.

This represents a deterioration of 1.63 percentage points from the 33.27 per cent recorded in Q3.

Also, performance across the DisCos remained largely below expectations, with only Eko DisCo meeting its ATC&C target during the quarter.

According to the report, Kaduna DisCo recorded the worst performance, posting an actual loss level of 69.45 per cent against a target of 21.32 per cent.

To cushion unmetered customers from arbitrary billing, NERC said it would continue the enforcement of monthly energy caps across feeders to limit the amount DisCos can charge customers without meters based on consumption patterns.