Nigerians spent a total of ₦553.63 billion on electricity in the first three months of 2025, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said in its latest quarterly report. This amount represents an increase of 8.59% compared to the ₦509.84 billion collected in the last quarter of 2024.
The Q1 2025 report, released on Wednesday, shows that the ₦553.63 billion collected was 74.39% of the total ₦744.27 billion billed to electricity users during the period. This marks a drop in revenue collection performance compared to the 77.44% collection efficiency recorded in the final quarter of 2024, reflecting a 3.05 percentage point decline.
According to the report, Ikeja Electric recorded the highest revenue among distribution companies (DisCos), collecting ₦101.92 billion. Eko DisCo followed closely with ₦96.98 billion, while Abuja DisCo came in third with ₦81.45 billion. On the lower end, Yola DisCo brought in ₦6.21 billion, Kaduna Electric ₦10.8 billion, and Jos DisCo ₦14.25 billion.
“The total revenue collected by all DisCos in 2025/Q1 was ₦553.63 billion out of the ₦744.27 billion billed to customers. This translates to a collection efficiency of 74.39%,” the report stated.
Despite the overall drop in efficiency, four DisCos still managed to exceed 80% in revenue collection. Eko DisCo led the pack with a collection efficiency of 84.79%, while Jos DisCo had the weakest performance with just 47.19%.
The report also showed that only three DisCos—Kano, Abuja, and Enugu—improved in their revenue collection compared to Q4 2024. Kano DisCo saw the most progress with a 6.55 percentage point improvement, followed by Abuja with 4.81pp and Enugu with 0.72pp. The remaining eight DisCos recorded drops, most notably:
Port Harcourt DisCo: -15.11pp
Kaduna Electric: -7.12pp
Eko DisCo: -5.21pp
NERC noted that the best ways to boost revenue and accurately track power consumption are proper customer enumeration and metering. It stated that the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF), which began operating on June 24, 2024, has helped to install meters for over 41,000 Band A users.
Distribution companies are still expected to continue installing meters under both the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) and the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) schemes to reduce the number of unmetered customers.
In the first quarter of 2025, a total of 187,194 meters were installed. This was a slight increase of 0.41% from the 186,431 meters added in Q4 2024.
As of March 31, 2025, only 6.46 million out of the 13.76 million registered electricity customers had been metered. This means that about 53% of Nigerian electricity users still rely on estimated billing.
