Gencos to Sell Electricity Directly to Consumers

Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, has declared that eligible power consumers are now free to purchase electricity directly from power generation companies.

By declaring eligible customers, the minister has empowered the consumer to buy electricity directly from a licensee other than power distribution companies, a development that the Discos opposed recently.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC)  on Friday stated that Fashola declared four categories of eligible customers in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry on May 15, 2017, describing the declaration as a major policy directive in the NESI.

In a statement issued in Abuja, NERC said, “The declaration which permits electricity customers to buy power directly from the generation companies is in line with the provisions of Section 27 of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005, whereby eligible customers are permitted to buy power from a licensee other than electricity distribution companies.

“In exercising the power conferred on him by the said Act, the minister directed the commission to permit four categories of customers to buy power directly from a licensee other than electricity distribution companies.”

It said the first category of eligible customers comprises of a group of end-users registered with the commission whose consumption is no less than 2MWhr/h (megawatts-hour/hour) and connected to a metered 11kV or 33kV delivery point on the distribution network.

This customer, according to NERC, must be subject to a distribution use of system agreement for the delivery of electrical energy.