•As percentage of metered subscribers stands at 47%
Electricity consumers connected to the grid network in Nigeria have increased to 11.27 million, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said yesterday.
NBS, in a report, said that the number of consumers moved from 11.06 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 11.27 million in the first quarter of 2023, recording a 1.89 per cent increase.
The report corroborated an earlier figure released by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
The report leveraged energy billed, revenue generated and numbers of metered and unmetered customers by DisCos to arrive at the conclusion.
On a year-on-year basis, the number of customers in the first quarter of 2023 rose by 5.99 per cent from 10.63 million reported in the first quarter of 2022.
Similarly, metered customers stood at 5.31 million in the first quarter of 2023, indicating a growth of 3.61 per cent from 5.13 million recorded in the preceding quarter.
On a year-on-year basis, the figure grew by 10.86 per cent from the figure reported in the first quarter of 2022, which was 4.79 million.
Quarterly, the proportion of metered customers increased from 46.3 per cent in Q4 ’22 to 47.1 per cent in Q1 ’23, a percentage point difference of 0.9.
The report however stated that the estimated customers during the quarter were 5.96 million in the first quarter of 2023, higher by 0.40 per cent from 5.93 million in the first quarter of 2022. On a year-on-year basis, estimated customers increased by 1.99 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 from 5.84 million in Q1 2022.
The report shows that the electricity supply was 5,852 (Gwh) in Q1 2023 from 5,611 (Gwh) in the previous quarter.
On a year-on-year basis, electricity supply declined by 1.74 per cent compared to 5,956 (Gwh) reported in first quarter of 2022.
“Revenue collected by the DISCOS during the period was N247.33 billion from N232.32 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022. On a year-on-year basis, revenue generated in the reference period rose by 20.81 per cent from N204.74 billion recorded in the first quarter of 2022,” the report noted.
