4.8m Electricity Customers Remain Unmetered as Penetration Climbs to 61.5%

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Over 4.8 million active electricity customers in Nigeria remained without meters at the end of June 2026, although the country’s metering drive recorded a sharp increase during the month, with 203,521 new installations across the 11 Distribution Companies (Discos), checks by THISDAY have shown.

According to the latest data from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC),  the national metering rate rose to 61.51 per cent in June 2026, up from 60.22 per cent in May, representing a 1.29 percentage-point improvement.

The June increase also marked a near doubling of monthly metering activity compared with May, when the Discos installed 104,585 meters, the new data indicated.

But despite the improvement, the figures highlighted the continuing challenge of closing Nigeria’s metering gap, with millions of electricity customers still exposed to estimated billing more than a decade after efforts to achieve universal metering began.

The metering deficit has persisted for years, with the absence of meters making it difficult to accurately determine electricity consumption and contributing to disputes between Discos and their customers, despite the introduction of several initiatives by the federal government.

The NERC’s data showed that the number of active customers across the 11 DisCos increased from 12,520,435 in May to 12,589,486 in June, an addition of 69,051 customers. Over the same period, metered customers increased from 7,540,318 to 7,743,839, leaving about 4.85 million active customers without meters.

The latest figures came as the electricity sector regulator said it continues to push metering as part of efforts to improve billing transparency, strengthen revenue collection and reduce disputes between Discos and consumers.

In all, the NERC figures showed that Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IEDC) recorded the largest number of new meter installations in June, with 80,643 customers metered, followed by Kano with 44,753 devices.

In the same vein, Abuja installed 18,419 meters, while Benin added 18,739. Enugu recorded 10,805 new installations, Kaduna 7,816, Jos 6,077 and Yola 5,202.

Besides, the NERC data showed that Port Harcourt added 5,713 customers to its metered base, while Eko installed 4,744 meters. Ikeja recorded the lowest number of new installations during the period with 610 meters, despite having one of the highest penetrations at 87.16 per cent .

The pace of metering, however, remained uneven across the Discos, with the gap between the best and worst-performing networks widening significantly. Eko had the highest metering penetration at 88.70 per cent, followed by Ikeja at 87.91 per cent and Abuja at 81.38 per cent.

At the bottom of the table, Jos recorded a metering rate of 35.42 per cent, followed by Yola at 36.20 per cent and Kaduna at 39.83 per cent. Kano recorded one of the biggest improvements, with its metering rate rising from 35.41 per cent in May to 40.67 per cent in June.

Ibadan also recorded a significant increase, moving from 54.76 per cent to 57.62 per cent after installing more than 80,000 meters during the month. Benin’s metering rate rose from 60.12 per cent to 61.01 per cent, while Port Harcourt increased marginally from 68.46 per cent to 68.66 per cent.

Besides, Abuja improved from 80.70 per cent to 81.38 per cent, while Eko moved from 88.41 per cent to 88.70 per cent. Ikeja, however, recorded a marginal decline from 87.93 per cent in May to 87.91 per cent in June, despite installing 610 new meters.

NERC classified Discos with metering rates below 50 per cent as red, those between 50 and 69 per cent as amber and companies with rates of 70 per cent and above as green.

Based on the June figures, Abuja, Eko and Ikeja were in the green category, while Benin, Enugu, Ibadan and Port Harcourt remained in the amber category. Jos, Kaduna, Kano and Yola were classified in the red category, reflecting their substantially lower levels of metering.

The commission also defines active customers as those who have either vended electricity or been billed at least once within the preceding 12 months.

NERC also noted that some of the June figures reported by Enugu, Ibadan and Kano included meter installations carried out between January and May 2026 but not previously reported by the respective Discos.