Implications of the Electricity Billing System in Aluu, ‎Rivers State

Electricity billing based on estimated bills is a big problem for the consumers of electricity in Nigeria and Rivers state in particular, because of the unrealistically high monthly bills. Electricity billing has evolved from analogue meter based billing to estimated billing and digital prepaid meter billing. Four and a Half years bills obtained from a location in Aluu, were collated and analysed using the principles of band system of electricity billing as stipulated by Nigeria Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC). Band system billing makes use of the ratio of cumulative duration of electricity availability (hours) to maximum approved hours, bill cap (kwh), band based tariff rate, and the value added tax (%) to generate the amount in naira. The lack of actual duration (hours) of electricity availability, data prompted the researchers to make two assumptions to do a phenomenological model of poor and good electricity availability options to compare with those used in the PHED monthly bills. The result of the PHED monthly bill analysis shows the following daily average availability of ۳۹.۳۳%, ۷۷.۱۷%, ۱۱۵.۷۵%, ۱۱۰.۵۰%, and ۱۲۲.۳۳% from ۲۰۱۹ to ۲۰۲۳ while the researchers’ monthly bill provides the following daily average availability of ۲۳.۰۰%, ۴۷.۶۷%, ۴۶.۶۷%, ۵۲.۸۳%, and ۵۵.۰۰% for the same years. The PHED availability data appears to be highly exaggerated as the power supply in Aluu and its environs over the years do not reflect such. This might be corroborated by NERC’s accusation of all the eleven distribution companies in Nigeria of overbilling customers in ۲۰۲۳.

کلیدواژه ها:

Phenomenological model ، ‎Availability ، Bill cap ، Band system ، ‎Monthly electricity bills ، NERC ، ‎PHED