The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, (NERC) issued guidelines to stop the blame game between the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and Distribution Companies (Discos) over the latter’s alleged incessant rejection of power.
The new guidelines came as the revised electricity tariffs to be paid by some electricity consumers, earlier approved by President Muhammadu Buhari and the NERC, commence today.
Under the guidelines, NERC said that, “the federal government under the Power Sector Recovery Plan (PSRP) financial plan has committed to funding the revenue gap arising from the difference between the cost reflective tariffs determined by the commission and the actual end-user tariff during the transition to the cost-reflective tariff.”
In documents containing the official communication between NERC and the Discos, which detailed the reviewed rules, obtained by THISDAY, the regulator said any rejection of power by either the Discos or under-supply by the TCN would now attract a “capacity charge.”
TCN has always complained that the country’s power supply situation is worsening because of the rejection of electricity allocation by Discos, noting that the problem persisted because the distributors can drop load and increase it at will without being penalised.
“Where it is established that the TCN is unable to deliver Discos’ load allocation, TCN shall be liable to pay for associated capacity charge. Where Discos fail to take its entire load allocation due to constraints in its network, the Disco shall be liable to pay capacity charge as allocated in its vesting contracts,” NERC stated.
