The Commission explained that the debt has been accumulating despite ongoing efforts to recover payments from these countries.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has revealed that several international customers, including Niger and Togo, have failed to pay their outstanding electricity bills, totaling $14.19 million for the first quarter of 2024.
According to the NERC report, the debt is owed by neighboring countries and others that rely on Nigeria for a portion of their power supply.
The Commission explained that the debt has been accumulating despite ongoing efforts to recover payments from these countries.
Meanwhile, last year, the federal government disclosed that international electricity consumers owed Nigeria approximately $51.26 million for electricity exports.
In response, in May, the Federal Government instructed system operators in the Nigerian power sector to limit electricity exports to international customers to no more than 6% of total available grid generation per hour.
According to the NERC report, none of the four international customers, including neighboring countries like Benin Republic, Niger, and Togo, made any payments for the electricity supplied to them.
Meanwhile, the report reveals that in the first quarter of 2024, these international bilateral customers did not settle the $14.19 million invoice issued to them by the Market Operator (MO) for services rendered during that period.
Similarly, no payments were made by domestic bilateral customers against a cumulative invoice of N1,860.11 million issued by the MO for the same quarter.
However, the report also indicates that both local and international bilateral customers made payments for outstanding balances from previous quarters.
Specifically, two international customers paid approximately $5.19 million, while eight domestic bilateral customers paid around N505.71 million.
In the first quarter of 2024, Distribution Companies (DisCos) were invoiced a total of N114.12 billion for upstream services, including N65.96 billion for generation costs and N48.16 billion for transmission and administrative services.
The DisCos collectively paid N110.62 billion, leaving an outstanding balance of N3.50 billion. This resulted in a remittance performance of 96.93%, a notable improvement from the 69.88% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The report also highlighted a decline in the average available generation capacity across all power plants in the country, which fell to 4,249.10MW in Q1 2024, a decrease of 13.68% (or 673.16MW) compared to the 4,922.26MW recorded in Q4 2023.
This reduction was attributed to lower generation capacities at 17 of the 27 grid-connected power plants reported in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous quarter.
The report further notes that the average hourly generation of available units dropped by 8.22% (or 364.25MWh/h), falling from 4,433.82MWh/h in Q4 2023 to 4,069.57MWh/h in Q1 2024. Consequently, total electricity generation decreased by 9.21% (or 901.94GWh), from 9,789.87GWh in Q4 2023 to 8,887.93GWh in the first quarter of 2024.
This decline in gross energy generation was primarily due to the reduced generation capacities of the grid-connected power plants compared to the previous quarter.