Don't Miss


Home   >   Business   >   Industries   >   Energy   >   Power firms adjusting electricity tariffs – NERC

Power firms adjusting electricity tariffs – NERC

By on October 27, 2015

The public outcry against the plans by power distribution companies to increase electricity tariffs may have forced some of them to effect corrections to the proposals they submitted to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.

According to NERC, some Discos are providing clarifications sought by the commission’s technical team that is currently working on their applications, and they are making some adjustments to the proposed tariffs.

Last week, The PUNCH exclusively reported that the Discos were seeking an average of 49.4 per cent rise in electricity tariffs for residential consumers, 21 per cent average increase for commercial customers and 30 per cent average rise in tariff for industrial consumers.

Bloomberg also reported last week that NERC had concluded plans to hike the tariffs by five to 40 per cent, depending on the consumer class and the Discos by mid-November.

But NERC, in a statement in Abuja, stated that it was still reviewing the tariff applications by the Discos, even as consumers criticised plans by the distribution companies to hike the rates.

The Assistant National Secretary, National Electricity Consumers Advocacy Network, Mr. Obong Eko, told our correspondent that Nigerians were largely against the plans to hike the tariffs.

Eko vowed that NECAN would resist attempts to impose increased electricity rates on consumers as this would adversely affect the business operations, particularly those in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises cadre.

NERC said in the statement that it was also reviewing the outcome of public consultations that it conducted with power consumers and the Discos.

It stated that it was preposterous to speculate on the range of increase or the tendency in electricity tariff at this stage.

The Chairman, NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, was quoted as saying, “It is at the end of the ongoing review exercise to be concluded in a few weeks’ time that the percentages of increase or decrease will be clearer to anyone.

“The final figure is not clear to anyone as some of the Discos are still providing clarifications sought by the commission’s technical team working on their applications. Some of them are also making corrections to their applications on the basis of those clarifications.”

He explained further that the process of reviewing the applications was painstaking and thorough.

 

[Punch]