EKEDC has 365,255 prepaid, 173,663 post-paid customers – Godwin Idemudia, EKEDC GM, Corporate Comm.

Oredola Adeola

Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) has revealed that over 365,255 customers are on prepaid meters, 173,663 customers are post-paid and 7, 649 are under key customer groups, out of 546,567 total active customers within its franchise network.

Mr. Godwin Idemudia, General Manager, Corporate Communications, EKEDC, mentioned this in a statement obtained by EnergyDay at the weekend.

According to him, EKEDC has embarked on aggressive metering under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) and National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) Scheme to bridge the metering gap.

Idemudia disclosed that the metering scheme has enabled the company to have a higher metered population than customers on post-paid.

He added that EKEDC has metered distribution transformers to enable accurate calculation for customers on estimated billing, pending when all of them will be fully metered.

According to him, NMMP is currently suspended as Phase 1 is yet to commence.

Idemudia said that DisCo is currently working on the MAP scheme, to enable customers to get metered within 10 working days of payment confirmation.

He said, “This is geared towards eliminating estimated billings and bridging the metering gap. The more customers that participate in the scheme, the earlier our chances of metering all customers.

“As at the start of the NMMP Phase 0, an initiative of the Federal Government, where meters were provided to customers for free, the goal of the initiative was to meter our entire population within five years (2025),” he said.

On energy theft and other offenses, Idemudia said that about 160 people were either convicted or are pending conviction since the inception of power sector privatisation.

He further noted that EKEDC is deliberately investing in the equipment, cables, and other distribution infrastructure to aid the speedy restoration of faults in areas with underground cables.

The EKEDC’s GM Corporate Communication said “In addition to that, we are working on replacing the cables, but are pacing ourselves as it is a huge CAPEX investment.

He also noted that the company was actively exploring possible partnerships with several entities to improve power supply via embedded generation.

Mr. Idemudia further noted those engagements are at advanced stages and shall be executed in due time.