The Federal Government subsidised about N321.26bn of electricity generation costs in the second quarter of 2026, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has disclosed.
According to the Commission, the Federal Government continued to bear part of the cost of keeping electricity tariffs at July 2024 rates.
It stated that the subsidy represented about 50 per cent of the total generation costs during the quarter.
The NERC’s Q2 report showed that the subsidy reduced the amount payable by electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) for generation costs to N326.46bn.
It stated that the DisCos also owed N83.92bn for transmission and administrative services provided by the Market Operator (MO), bringing their total upstream invoice payable to N410.38bn during the quarter.
According to the report, the DisCos collectively remitted N385.44bn, comprising N306.62bn to NBET and N78.82bn to the MO, leaving an outstanding balance of N24.94bn.
It explained that the remittance represented a performance of 93.92 per cent, slightly lower than the 94.08 per cent recorded in the first quarter of 2026.
The figures also showed that the total energy offtake by DisCos during the quarter was valued at N946.57bn, while N744.67bn was billed to customers.
This translated to a billing efficiency of 78.67 per cent and billing losses of N201.90bn.
During the period, the DisCos collected N603.64bn out of the N744.67bn billed to customers, representing a collection efficiency of 81.06 per cent.
The collection efficiency, the Commission said, increased by 2.11 percentage points from the 78.95 per cent recorded in the first quarter.
However, the weighted average Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) loss remained high at 36.23 per cent during the quarter.
The loss comprised technical and commercial losses of 21.33 per cent and collection losses of 18.94 per cent.
The 36.23 per cent ATC&C loss was 19.31 percentage points above the 2026 MYTO target of 16.92 per cent and translated to a cumulative revenue loss of N129.073bn billion across the DisCos.
Despite the challenges, the ATC&C loss improved by 1.21 percentage points compared with the first quarter.
Also, during the period, Nigeria had 28 grid-connected power plants during the quarter, comprising five hydro, two steam, 19 Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) and two Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plants.
The average available generation capacity stood at 4,454.17 megawatts (MW), representing a marginal decline of 3.80MW, or 0.09 per cent, from the 4,457.96MW recorded in the first quarter.
The average plant availability factor was 32.69 per cent, indicating that 67.31 per cent of the total installed capacity of the 28 grid-connected plants was unavailable for dispatch at any given time during the quarter.
The plant availability factor also declined marginally by 0.03 percentage points from 32.72 per cent in the first quarter.
On metering, a total of 350,270 meters were installed during the quarter, representing a 17.97 per cent decline from the 426,985 meters installed in the first quarter.
Of the meters installed, 205,486, representing 58.67 per cent, were deployed under the Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), while 123,833 were installed under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) framework.
Another 13,028 meters were installed under the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF) framework, 7,643 under the DisCo-financed framework and 280 under the Vendor-financed framework.
As of the end of June, 7,743,839 of the 12,589,486 active registered electricity customers in the NESI had been metered, representing a national metering rate of 61.51 per cent.
