DisCos Meter Additional 203,521 Customers In June As Nat’l Metering Rate Hits 61.51%

Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies (DisCos) increased the number of metered electricity customers by 203,521 in June 2026, pushing the national metering rate to 61.51 per cent, according to the latest Metering Status of Distribution Companies Factsheet released by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

The June performance represents a significant improvement in monthly meter deployment compared with May, when the DisCos metered 104,585 customers.

The latest figures show that meter installations nearly doubled month-on-month as the industry continued efforts to reduce the country’s metering gap.

According to the NERC factsheet covering May and June 2026, the total number of active electricity customers across the 11 DisCos rose from 12,520,435 in May to 12,589,486 in June.

At the same time, the number of metered customers increased from 7,540,318 to 7,743,839 during the period, representing an addition of 203,521 customers.

Consequently, the national metering rate improved from 60.22 per cent in May to 61.51 per cent in June, representing a 1.29 percentage-point increase within one month.

Despite the improvement, the figures indicate that 4,845,647 active electricity customers remained without meters at the end of June, underscoring the scale of Nigeria’s metering challenge.

The May figure showed 4,980,117 active customers without meters, meaning the number of unmetered customers declined by 134,470 month-on-month.

The performance across individual DisCos showed wide differences in metering coverage, with Eko, Ikeja and Abuja maintaining their positions as the three DisCos with the highest metering rates.

Eko Electricity Distribution Company recorded the highest metering rate at 88.70 per cent in June, up from 88.41 per cent in May. The DisCo had 685,304 active customers, of which 607,877 were metered.

Ikeja Electric followed with a metering rate of 87.91 per cent, marginally lower than the 87.93 per cent recorded in May. It had 1,347,218 active customers and 1,184,385 metered customers.

Abuja Electricity Distribution Company ranked third, with its metering rate rising from 80.70 per cent in May to 81.38 per cent in June. The DisCo had 1,403,657 active customers, while 1,142,283 had been metered.

Port Harcourt DisCo recorded a metering rate of 68.66 per cent in June, compared with 68.46 per cent in May, with 751,148 of its 1,094,057 active customers metered.

Benin DisCo improved its metering rate from 60.12 per cent to 61.01 per cent, with 697,207 metered customers out of 1,142,721 active customers.

Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company recorded the largest number of newly metered customers among the DisCos in June, with 80,643 customers listed as newly metered.

The figure was followed by Kano DisCo, which recorded 44,753 newly metered customers, while Abuja added 18,419 customers and Benin 18,739 customers.

Jos DisCo recorded 6,077 newly metered customers, Kaduna 7,816, Port Harcourt 5,713, Yola 5,202 and Eko 4,744.

Ikeja recorded 610 newly metered customers during the month, while its total metered customer base increased slightly to 1,184,385.

The NERC factsheet noted that the figures marked with an asterisk for Enugu, Ibadan and Kano include meter installations between January and May 2026 that had not previously been reported by the respective DisCos.

The June data also revealed a substantial disparity in metering performance across the distribution companies.

While Eko, Ikeja and Abuja had metering rates above 80 per cent, several DisCos remained below the 50 per cent threshold.

Kaduna DisCo recorded a metering rate of 39.83 per cent in June, up from 38.68 per cent in May, while Kano improved from 35.41 per cent to 40.67 per cent.

Yola DisCo’s metering rate rose from 35.20 per cent to 36.20 per cent, while Jos improved from 34.75 per cent to 35.42 per cent.

The figures place these DisCos significantly below the national average of 61.51 per cent and highlight the uneven pace of metering deployment across the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).

The NERC data further showed that Nigeria’s active electricity customer base increased by 69,051 between May and June, rising from 12.52 million to 12.59 million.

This continued growth in the customer base means that DisCos must maintain a strong pace of meter deployment merely to prevent the metering gap from widening.

The latest figures suggest that June’s higher deployment rate helped narrow the absolute gap despite the increase in active customers.

NERC defines active customers as customers that have vendored or were billed at least once within a 12-month period.

The regulator classifies DisCos according to their metering performance, with metering rates below 50 per cent classified as red, rates from 50 per cent to below 70 per cent classified as amber, and rates of 70 per cent and above classified as green.

Based on the classification, Eko, Ikeja and Abuja remained in the green category in June, while Benin, Enugu, Ibadan and Port Harcourt were in the amber category. Jos, Kaduna, Kano and Yola remained in the red category.