The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has called for enhanced stakeholder coordination to rapidly expand electricity meter installations and narrow Nigeria’s persistent metering gap.
This push emerged from the NESI Metering Stakeholders’ Meeting held in Lagos on March 27, 2026, where regulators, industry players, and international partners converged to tackle rollout bottlenecks.
According to a post on NERC’s X handle, key attendees included representatives from the World Bank, Meristem, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), NEMSA, Distribution Companies (DisCos), and Meter Asset Providers (MAPs).
NERC highlighted a strategic pivot from merely financing metering initiatives to fostering seamless collaboration.
With four separate metering programmes currently underway, the commission stressed the urgency of aligning efforts to avoid duplication and accelerate deployment.
“Greater synergy among DisCos, meter providers, and other stakeholders is essential to ramp up installations,” a NERC spokesperson noted. This coordinated approach aims to deliver accurate billing, eradicate estimated charges that frustrate consumers, and boost overall market efficiency.
The meeting also underscored the need for a unified communication strategy to heighten public awareness and encourage consumer uptake, as part of NERC’s broader drive for transparency in Nigeria’s electricity sector.
LEADERSHIP checks showed that the four metering programmes currently running concurrently include: The “four metering programmes” currently running in parallel in Nigeria are:
World Bank–funded Nigeria Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP) – Aims to deploy about 3.2 million end‑user meters to improve revenue collection and reduce losses; Federation Funded Initiative – A federal government‑backed programme supplying roughly 3.8 million end‑user meters and about 130,000 distribution transformer (DT) meters;
DisCo‑Funded Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF) – A DisCo‑financed scheme providing around 125,000 end‑user meters, typically to address gaps not covered by the large federal programmes; as well as the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) – A broader, technology‑driven framework deploying smart‑meter‑based systems to enhance energy accounting, billing accuracy, and grid management.
These four initiatives are what NERC is now trying to better coordinate to avoid duplication and speed up closure of the metering gap.
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