Despite efforts to reduce arbitrary electricity billing, the number of customers on estimated billing increased by 10.22 per cent in the first three months of the year to 6.43 million, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed.

The NBS electricity report shows that estimated customers were 10.22 per cent more than 5.83 million on record as of Q4 2023. This implies the number of unmetered customers increased by 600,000 in the period, showing that the campaign against arbitrary billing has nor recorded the expected success.

The report stated that on a year-on-year basis, the number of estimated billing customers increased by 7.88 per cent in Q1 2024 from 5.96 million in Q1 2023.

According to the report, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) recorded the highest number of estimated billing customers, with 1.4 million in followed by Enugu DisCo with 765,662 customers while Ikeja Electric recorded the lowest number of estimated billing customers with 219,632.

However, with the rise in estimated billing customers, there is an increase in the total number of customers, the report indicated that the total customers in Q1 2024, grew to 12.33 million from 12.12 million in Q4 2023, showing a quarter-on-quarter rise of 1.78 per cent.

On a year-on-year basis, customer numbers in Q1 2024 rose by 9.47 per cent from 11.27 million reported in Q1 2023, which reflects the ongoing expansion of electricity access across the country.

IBEDC has the highest total number of customers, reaching 2.48 million in Q1 2024, up from 2.42 million in Q4 2023 due to its extensive customer base, followed by EEDC with 1.39 million customers in Q1 2024, up from 1.32 million in the previous quarter.

However, the increase in estimated billing has compounded the challenges, leading to collection losses as the revenue collected by the DisCos dropped by 1.13 per cent, falling from N294.95 billion in Q4 2023 to N291.62 billion in Q1 2024.

The revenue decline points to the financial pressure DisCos face, which is critical for maintaining and expanding electricity infrastructure coupled with the urgent need for comprehensive metering solutions to enhance operational efficiency and financial stability in the sector.

In a breakdown of the revenue collected, Ikeja Electric recorded the highest with N57.8 million, followed by Eko DisCo with N48.741 million and Abuja Disco with 48.6 million while Yola DisCo recorded the lowest revenue collection with N5.4 million.