…Says meter payment will hence forth be through Cost of Tariff
Commissioner for the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Mr Nathan Rogers Shatti, has explained that consumers of electricity in Nigeria are not expected to pay for meters in the new guidelines.

According to him, payment for meters be would be covered through tariff costs.
Speaking during a webinar organized by the electricity regulator for customers and stakeholders in the power sector on Wednesday evening, Mr Shatti pointed out that customers who had paid for their own meters would be compensated.

The Commissioner and other senior officials of NERC used the event to educate customers on the new service-based tariff and other complaints regarding their meters.

“Service based tariff is important. It would be applicable for those who are getting the services; let them pay for it.

“There would be a new mechanism for people who used their money to buy their own meters. There have been delays in the implementation; all those who paid for their own meters will be compensated.”

According to him, in the future, the cost of paying for the meters would be added to the new service costs, saying, “Metering, going forward won’t be paid for, but through the costs of tariff.”

He also explained how customers who had paid for their own meters would be compensated. “Their costs would be computed and they would be compensated overtime,” he said.

President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the much-anticipated electricity tariff increase effective from September 1st, 2020.

By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja

Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has issued a directive that power distribution companies (DisCos) can collect about 85.84% of the newly increased electricity tariffs from affected customers between September and December 2020.

In its latest orders in the matter of the Extraordinary Review of Multi Year Tariff Order 2015, which were recently issued to the 11 DisCos operating across the country, NERC granted approval to DisCos to collect as high as over 80 per cent of the newly increased tariff from customers.

Expectedly, power consumers have kicked against the tariff hike and the decision by NERC to issue such orders.

Notwithstanding, in the orders to Discos, which were jointly signed by NERC chairman, James Momoh, and a commissioner, Dafe Akpeneye, the commission said that the new tariffs took effect from September 1.

Investigations reveal that after NERC considered the key indices used in evaluating the tariff increase applications of the power firms, it approved an average of about 85.84% as what the DisCos should collect from customers affected by the hike in tariffs.

For instance, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), the NERC said its end-use cost-reflective tariff from September to December was N57.01 per kilowatt-hour and put the AEDC end-use allowed tariff during this period at N50.05/kWh.

Based on this order, AEDC would collect 87.79% as end-use allowed tariff from customers affected by the September 1 electricity tariff hike.

The power firm’s tariff shortfall during the period is 12.21%. Cost-reflective tariff is the tariff that will enable the Discos to recover their costs while the allowed tariff is what they are allowed to recover from their customers by the regulator.

The tariff shortfall will be funded by the federal government under the Power Sector Recovery Plan.

Under the PSRP Financing Plan, NERC said Nigeria has committed to fund the revenue gap arising from the difference between cost-reflective tariffs determined by the commission and the actual end-user tariffs during the transition to cost-reflective tariffs.

Reports have it that other Discos also had marginal shortfalls in the respective orders issued them by NERC. In Lagos area, the Eko Electricity Distribution Company got approval to collect N47.9/kWh as end-use allowed tariff. EKEDC’s end-use cost-reflective tariff was N49.62/kWh. It implies that Eko Disco was allowed to collect as much as 96.53% as tariff from customers affected by the recent hike.

For the Benin Electricity Distribution Company, the NERC put its end-use cost-reflective tariff at N59/kWh, while its end-use allowed tariff was N50.05/KWh, meaning BEDC had been empowered to collect 84.83% from customers affected by the tariff hike.

In Enugu, the EADC had its end-use cost-reflective tariff put at N56.76/kWh, while its end-use allowed tariff was N50.05, hence the Disco would collect 88.18% as tariff regardless of the hike in the bill.

The end-use cost-reflective tariff and end-use allowed tariff for Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company were N57.6kWh and N50.05kWh respectively, hence IBEDC would collect 86.89 per cent as tariff.

In the Kano Electricity Distribution Company, NERC gave it an end-use allowed tariff of N50.05/kWh, while its end-use cost-reflective tariff was N55.73/kWh, hence it would collect 89.81 per cent tariff from affected customers.

For Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, it would collect 96.74%, as its end-use cost-reflective tariff and end-use allowed tariff were N47.45/kWh and N45.76/kWh respectively. Jos Electricity Distribution Company would be collecting much less than the 85.84% average being collected by the 11 Discos.

Investigations show that the JEDC’s end-use cost-reflective tariff was N76.13/kWh, while its end-use allowed tariff was N50.05/kWh, hence it would collect 65.74 per cent from affected power users in its franchise area.

The Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company’s end-use cost-reflective tariff and end-use allowed tariff were N57.22/kWh and N50.05/kWh respectively, meaning it would collect 87.46% from its customers.

NERC gave the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC) an end-use allowed tariff of N50.05/kWh and an end-use cost-reflective tariff of N64.82; hence, its customers affected by the recent hike should be willing to pay 77.21% of the applicable tariff.

For Yola Electricity Distribution Company’s end-use cost-reflective tariff and end-use allowed tariff, NERC put them at N59.99/kWh and N50.05/kWh, meaning it would collect 83.43% as tariff from affected customers of the September 1 tariff hike.

Meanwhile, NERC has said not all power users were affected by the tariff hike.

By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja

Solar system provider, Lumos has announced $35 million in new financing from the US International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) to expand its existing market for clean and reliable solar power in Nigeria.

Lumos Group chief executive officer, Alistair Gordon said, the funding from DFC will enable people throughout Nigeria to seize the opportunities that come with access to reliable and affordable power.

“Access to energy is the foundation for a high quality of life, good healthcare, education, and increased income. Our ultimate goal at Lumos is to provide power for everyone,” he said in a company statement.

He explained further that the new funding will enable Lumos to produce 160,000 additional solar home systems to meet the ever-increasing demand from homes and businesses across the country.

Currently, more than 160 million people in Nigeria have poor or no access to electricity and they are expected to benefit from the new development.

The new Lumos solar home systems will enable close to a million people to switch to clean energy, contributing to economic growth and sustainable development in the country.

The company said the project is aligned with the Nigerian government’s plans to connect five million households to solar power, as announced in June.

DFC managing director for Africa Worku Gachou said: “Access to power is a fundamental need across Africa and is even more urgent as Covid-19 continues to impact communities across the continent.

“Supporting Lumos will empower one million people across Nigeria by delivering access to reliable and affordable energy. Together, we can help unlock Africa’s enormous potential for growth.”

The DFC financing announcement follows funding from Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, announced in August. The FMO funding is projected to more than double Lumos’ customer base in Côte d’Ivoire and West Africa.

Lumos CFO and Group COO Shmulik Kollender said: “We thank DFC for its continued support of our vision and approach. Our longstanding partnership with DFC had already allowed Lumos to command a market leading position in the largest off-grid market in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“DFC financing is even more important these days. In light of the impact that Covid-19 has had on our customers, there is a real need for impact-oriented investors that can share our vision to eliminate energy poverty in the country.”

By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja

The World Bank has said that it would start the disbursement of the $750 million it approved for Nigeria’s Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP) next year and complete the exercise in 2023.

Nigeria’s Power Sector Recovery Programme is designed to improve the reliability of electricity supply, financial sustainability, as well as enhance accountability in the country’s power sector.

The World Bank said in a recent document that it would not pay out any money from the fund in 2020.

According to the programme, it would start disbursement in 2021 with $426 million, while the sum of $162 million would be disbursed each in 2022 and 2023 respectively, to bring the total to $750 million.

With the government’s revenue projected to drop by three per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or more in 2020, the World Bank said it is expected that Nigeria would experience some fiscal pressure, necessitating urgent reforms in its power sector.

It said also that the programme would help the government redirect large fiscal resources from regressive power tariffs subsidies towards critical crisis-responsive and pro-poor expenditures.

The multilateral institution said in 2019, Nigeria’s electricity tariff shortfalls reached N524 billion or $1.72 billion, equivalent to 0.4% of her GDP and more than N428 billion spent on health care delivery.

“The federal government financing gap in 2020 is currently estimated at $8.1 billion and it would increase by $1.0 billion in the absence of implementation of Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP) and Power Sector Recovery Operation (PSRO).

“In addition, the sector recovery efforts focused on ensuring regulatory and policy predictability, providing incentives for efficiency in operations, while enforcing payment discipline across the supply chain are critical for maintaining the ‘lights on’ through the continued generation of electricity,” the World Bank said.

Additionally, it noted that improving power sector performance would be central to unlocking economic growth, particularly in the non-oil sectors of manufacturing and services during the recovery process. “The annual economic losses caused by Nigeria’s unreliable power supply have been estimated at N10.1 trillion or about two per cent of GDP.”

Nigeria ranks 131 with respect to the overall ease of doing business in World Bank’s 2020 assessment, with getting access to electricity ranked as one of the major constraints. With regards to clear-cut objectives of the scheme, the bank stated that it has three-Programme Development Objectives (PDO) for it.

They include an increase in annual electricity supplied to the distribution grid; decrease in annual tariff shortfalls, and that the new tariff shortfalls should be funded from non-Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sources once its Payment Assurance Fund (PAF) is depleted.

It also requested that public awareness about the ongoing power sector reforms and performance increases.

The bank said while a multi-layer of implementation processes would be adopted for the programme, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) would, however, be its top implementation agencies.

“Successful implementation of PSRP and PSRO requires robust governance and implementation arrangements, given the complex inter-agency dependencies of many of PSRP interventions and the need for change behaviours in key MDAs.

“As the bulk trader purchasing electricity from Gencos and selling it to Discos, NBET will be the entity receiving different sources of funds to execute the approved financing plan i.e. make regular (monthly) payments to Gencos for the tariff shortfall portion of the Gencos invoices (both new and historical arrears) and make CBN debt service payments.”

By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja

Nigeria’s power sector has recorded losses amounting to N365 billion in the first half of 2020, H1’20, attributable to insufficient gas supply, distribution and transmission infrastructure. 

This represents 23% increase year-on-year (YoY) when compared to N279.81 billion losses suffered in H1’19.

A breakdown showed that, in the first half of 2020, the losses stood at N56.4 billion, N55 billion and N66 billion in January, February and March respectively. In April, May and June 2020, the losses stood at N64.6 billion, N61.6 billion and N61.8 billion respectively.

The losses, which also occurred mainly because of inadequate infrastructure, equipment failure and low water reserves, were recorded along the value chain by generation companies (GenCos) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), involved in the generation and transmission of power respectively.

Statistics from the National Control Centre, (NCC) showed that the average energy sent out to the 11 Discos by TCN in H1’20 surged marginally by 0.3% to 3,958 megawatts, when compared to 3,948mw recorded in the corresponding period in 2019.

The statistics showed that of 28 generating plants, 26 sent out an average of 4,896.99mw in H1’20 to the TCN thus, indicating an increase of 19.3% when compared to 3,949.6mw sent out by 27 generating plants in H1’19.

The report said that in the first half of 2020, ASCO and AES generating plants did not generate any power.

Similarly, in the corresponding period of 2019, Dadin Kowa Power Station, Egbin ST6, ASCO and AES generating plants did not generate electricity. However, this development exposed the inability of the nation’s power sector chain, including, Discos, TCN, and Gencos to meet the expectation of consumers.

The Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies (GenCos), Mrs Joy Ogayi, said: “This shows low/minimal optimisation of generation capacity due to constraints on the transmission and distribution networks.

Without these constraints, additional 3,000mw could be made available to customers and serve as an incentive for Generation Companies, GenCos, to recover the unavailable capacity of over 5,000mw.

“For the short term, Nigeria needs to optimise what is available and what can be recovered, while in the medium to long term with effective planning, Nigeria can achieve new capacities by embracing renewables and suspend thermals,” she said.

By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja

The Management of Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited, operators of the Kainji and Jebba Hydro Power Plants said,  that the facilities were intact and in full operations.

The company was reacting to what it described as a “wicked rumour trending on social media”  that Kainji Dam has burst its banks.

According to a statement by Mr Olugbenga Adebola, Head, Corporate Communications of the company Orient Energy, “saying that the news is totally false. Our dam is in full operations and currently supplying power to the national grid.

“The fact that we are in full and normal operations can easily be confirmed from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the National Control Center (NCC) who are our dispatchers to the national grid.

“The Kainji Hydro Power Plant is currently carrying out water spillage exercise to regulate the water flow along the river Niger. The dam reservoir is currently not at its fullest capacity and will not be in the coming months, therefore bursting its banks does not arise.

“This is an exercise carried out annually to ensure that the reservoir is well secured and that the expected flow of water along the River Niger and its tributaries are controlled.

“Our team of dedicated and experienced engineers are working round the clock to ensure power supply to the nation as well as the safety and integrity of our dam. We would like to assure the public that there is no cause for alarm and the wicked and fake news should be disregarded.”

By Kenechukwu Obiajuru, Yenagoa

After eight years of an experimental phase, Hydroma Inc., the precursor of natural hydrogen in Mali, is moving up a gear.

The natural hydrogen wells operated by this company will now be used to produce clean electricity on a large scale to meet the energy needs of Mali and even other countries on the African continent.

The ingenious and innovative energy adventure that the people of Bourakébougou have been enjoying since 2012 will soon bring happiness to others across Mali and even the African continent.

In this small village located about 60 kilometres north-west of the capital Bamako, natural hydrogen sources are being exploited for the production of electricity. This energy is then distributed free of charge to the local population by the Malian company Hydroma Inc.

After eight years of testing this process of producing electricity from a renewable source, natural hydrogen gas, whose exploitation emits no greenhouse gases, Aliou Boubacar Diallo, the promoter of Hydroma Inc. is convinced that he has sniffed out a good deal. 

“The future exploitation of Mali’s natural hydrogen paves the way for an Africa at the forefront of tomorrow’s technologies,” he enthuses. To begin the second phase of his project, namely the exploitation of natural hydrogen on an industrial scale, the Malian businessman set out in December 2019 to look for partnerships in Europe, particularly in Germany, where experience with green hydrogen is fully established.

While waiting to find partners, Hydroma is continuing its drilling in Mali and has just launched explorations in Australia and Canada, where the company is headquartered.

Hydroma Inc. is also exploring the Green Hydrogen trail.

As Hydroma Inc’s energy ambitions extend beyond Mali, the company does not intend to be satisfied with the supply of hydrogen obtained naturally (underground). It intends to produce hydrogen via a decarbonized process: the electrolysis of water.

The electrolyser separates a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. This method is still not very widespread, as it is much more expensive (2 to 3 times more expensive than reforming natural gas, a carbonaceous process). What’s more, the electricity used in this process by Hydroma Inc. will come from a renewable source.

As part of this new ambition, the company is currently constructing fields of photovoltaic solar panels on large plots of land in Mali and Senegal. These solar power plants will make it possible to produce large quantities of green hydrogen that can meet local needs.

Hydrogen, obtained naturally or through the electrolysis of water, is a valid response to the challenges of the energy transition, in that the gas is inexhaustible and its energy recovery is non-polluting, producing only water.

Apart from clean electricity, green or natural hydrogen can also be used to decarbonise the transport sector.

Electric vehicles equipped with a fuel cell (PAC) transform hydrogen into electricity and water vapour. And compared to batteries, hydrogen has advantages in terms of range (500 to 700 km) and recharging time (< 5 min).

By Peace Obi with Agency Report

Artists, performers, and cultural workers gathered on Amsterdam’s Museumplein, Wednesday to celebrate the cutting of ties with fossil fuel companies by all cultural institutions located at the city’s iconic square which includes the prestigious Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, and the royal concert hall Het Concertgebouw.

The Concertgebouw is the latest institution that has dropped Shell as a sponsor, making the Museumplein fossil free.

Since 2016, artist collective Fossil Free Culture NL organised several unsolicited performances to call for an end of cultural sponsorships from oil and gas corporations, which are the primary drivers of climate breakdown.

“Cultural institutions will no longer be used to clean the public image of climate criminal corporations like Royal Dutch Shell,” according to Frida Escalante from Fossil Free Culture NL.

“Every cultural institution that kicks Shell out, erodes public acceptance for their destructive business model.”

Fossil Free Culture NL announced at the celebration that they are now setting their eyes on the city’s last remaining cultural institution still accepting money from Shell: the Science Museum NEMO. NEMO and Shell develop school programmes together.

“It is unacceptable that an oil company that has a track record in spreading misinformation discrediting climate science gets to have a say in educational programmes of the science museum.

“When NEMO drops Shell as a partner, Amsterdam will finally have a cultural sector completely free of oil and gas sponsorship,” says Frida Escalante.

The event concluded at the Nemo Science Museum where Fossil Free Culture NL invited the audience to install banners calling for the immediate stop of the partnership with Shell.

Cultural institutions in the Netherlands and internationally are coming under increasing scrutiny over fossil fuel sponsorships.

The Tate Galleries, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Edinburgh International Festival in the UK, the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Canadian Museum of History are among the growing list of cultural institutions that have renounced fossil fuel sponsorships following creative campaigns.

Fossil Free Culture NL is a collective of artists based in Amsterdam that has been campaigning for a Fossil Free Museumplein since 2016.

Through unsolicited art performances, they managed to liberate the Van Gogh Museum from its 18-year sponsorship deal with Shell in 2018 and The Concertgebouw in 2020.

By Peace Obi