The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (DisCo) said that it invested over N11.5bn in metering, network upgrade and rehabilitation in the first half of this year.
The company’s Managing Director, Mr John Donnachie, who made the disclosure at the weekend during a facility tour and equipment inspection in Ibadan, said the funding initiative was aimed at improving service delivery to consumers.
Represented by the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. John Ayodele, the company’s boss explained that continuous investments in capacity building projects remained a key part of the board and management’s commitment to fulfilling the company’s mandate and positively impacting on the socio-economic lives of the people in the areas of its coverage
He said: “We have in the past six months invested over N11.5bn in major capital projects. The investment cuts across our franchise areas, covering Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara, parts of Kogi, Niger and Ekiti states.
“These projects are major game-changers for IBEDC as a business and for our esteemed customers, as they have significantly improved our service delivery, quality and quantity of power supply”, the industry expert added.
While disclosing that the company has commenced the procurement and installation of over 11,000 distribution transformer meters, costing over N4 billion in recent months, Donnachie, explained that the DT meters will ensure that customers without meters were not over-billed through the company’s energy audit, accounting functionalities, and assist in reducing technical and commercial losses.
He expatiated: “In line with reducing the incidence of estimated billing, we have commenced our meter rollout, with the first batch of 48,470 meters of various ratings and capacities.
“This includes 35,000 single-phase, 12,000 three-phase, 1,470 whole current, CT-operated and statistical meters, which cost over N3.1bn, ahead of the MAP initiative currently being finalised by NERC and the Discos.
“The continuous metering of maximum demand customers is also in place, with the deployment of 13 high voltage energy meters and delivery of 912 low voltage maximum demand meters, which cost N405m”, Donnachie added
He pointed out further that company’s investment of over N1 billion in the supply and installation of advanced metering infrastructure systems was critical to its optimal implementation of the functionalities of DT meters.
The IBEDC boss hinted further that the company received recently 95 per cent of the Credit Advance Payment for Metering Implementation meters for deployment for those that paid, adding that the ongoing asset and customer enumeration exercise would be completed early next year.
He pointed out that when completed the project would enhance service delivery by providing critical data needed for planning and provision of infrastructure, reduce estimated bills, improve the accuracy and enhance quality of power supply and quicker fault response rates.