Metering Rate Rises To 61.51% As DisCos Install 536,000 New Meters

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said distribution companies (DisCos) added more than 536,000 metered electricity customers between January and June 2026, lifting the national metering rate from 57.93 per cent to 61.51 per cent. According to the regulator’s Metering Status of Distribution Companies factsheets, the number of metered customers rose from just above 7.2 million at the end of January to 7,743,839 by the end of June, out of 12,589,486 active customers.

NERC said DisCos metered 119,792 additional customers in January 2026, when the national metering rate stood at 57.93 per cent. [user] In February, the regulator said a further 121,798 customers were metered as monthly deployment continued. [user] By April, NERC said the metering rate had climbed to 59.69 per cent, with more than 7.44 million customers metered, after about 111,654 new connections were recorded in that month alone.

The regulator said the pace of installation accelerated in the second quarter. NERC said 104,585 additional customers were metered in May 2026, before DisCos recorded 203,521 new metered customers in June, the highest single-month figure so far this year. It said the June surge lifted the national metering rate by 1.29 percentage points in one month, from 60.22 per cent in May to 61.51 per cent in June.

NERC said three DisCos continued to lead the sector in coverage as of June 2026. The regulator said Eko Electricity Distribution Company recorded an 88.70 per cent metering rate, followed by Ikeja Electric at 87.91 per cent and Abuja Electricity Distribution Company at 81.38 per cent. It said these figures were consistent with earlier 2026 data, which showed Eko and Ikeja consistently above 87–88 per cent and Abuja above 80 per cent, while several northern DisCos remained below 40 per cent.

“Metering remains a core focus of NERC’s regulatory agenda under the Electricity Act 2023,” the regulator said, adding that higher metering coverage would reduce technical and commercial losses, improve revenue collection and end arbitrary estimated billing. NERC said the half-year addition of more than half a million new metered customers came as the federal government, through the World Bank-financed Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), reported the deployment and installation of 668,000 meters under Phase 1 of the scheme.

Despite the progress, NERC said about 4.85 million customers remained unmetered as of June 2026, underscoring the scale of the task ahead as regulators and DisCos work to close the metering gap.