Victor EzejaAba Power has restated its commitment to closing the metering gap in the nine of our 17 local government areas it currently covers in Abia State.
Aba Power Managing Director, Ugo Opiegbe, disclosed that the power firm plans to provide 120,000 meters in 2025 for customers, though the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) so far approved only 80,000 prepaid meters that will cost N10.8 billion.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelHe made this known at the end of a three-day management retreat at the company headquarters in Aba, Abia State.
He said the company has a strategic plan of being the first power firm in Nigeria to provide all customers with prepaid meters in the next 15 months.
To achieve the target, Opiegbe said the company has since the middle of January embarked on an aggressive provision of prepaid meters to customers.
“We increased access to meters from 5% in 2023 to 28% in 2024, the very year we got commissioned after 20 years of man-made obstacles”, Opiegbe stated.
“While most people regard this development as an important achievement in the Nigerian context, especially for a company commissioned by Vice President Kashim Shettima only last February on behalf of President Bola Tinubu, to us this is a bold challenge to close the metering gap the way no other DisCo has done”.
He said that even though the month of January 2025 ends in the next five days, the company has thr target of installing at least 1,100 prepaid meters within the first month of the year, no matter what happens.
“Anything that can cause a delay is considered an enemy that must be fought with all our resources and being,” he stated.
Speaking further on the NERC benchmark for meter installation, the electricity boss assured that the company is determined to exceed the by 50%, “despite the excruciating economic difficulties in the country, which will bring the cost to N15 billion, including Maximum Demand (MD) meters and feeder meters.”
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On his part, Rumundaka Wonodi, an engineer and the founding Managing Director of the Bulk Electricity Trading Company of Nigeria (popularly known as the Bulk Trader or NBET) said Aba Power’s meter campaign will aside from benefiting the customers, challenge other electricity distribution companies (DisCos) “to become more competitive.”
Prime Business Africa reports that Aba Power installed more than 2,000 prepaid meters in 2024.
The cost of a single-phase meter is to be around N120,000 while a three-phase meter goes for N247,000.
“There is so much hunger on the part of the Aba Power leadership to set records,” Wonodi, who also a former director of Constellation Energy, the biggest electricity distribution firm in the United States, noted.
Henley Blue-Jack, a retired General Manager with the NERC who also participated in the management retreat, recommended Aba Power for increasing electricity across the country. “I am overwhelmed by what I have seen here and I strongly recommend the Aba Power model for rapid electricity development in our dear country,” Blue-Jack stated.
Speaking about funding the meter project, Professor Steve Ogaji of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) revealed that Aba Power did not put all the money down for the prepaid meter procurement, but worked out an arrangement with meter vendor manufacturers and dealers like Steamaco of the United Kingdom to provide the meters on credit to ensure that as many Aba Power customers as possible have them immediately.
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“That’s why it is important to have enormous credibility in the industry, ” observed Ogaji, a former mechanical engineering lecturer at Cranfield University, one of the top British higher institutions.
“It will be nice for the country to see other DisCos follow in the Aba Power footsteps.”
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
