Empowering Nigeria:
Smart Meters, Smarter Grid
Bridging the gap between metered and unmetered citizens
Welcome to the Presidential Metering Initiative, powered by Smart Grid Development Limited. Our mission is to transform Nigeria’s electricity supply by implementing advanced metering solutions to ensure every household and business receives fair and precise metering.
Our Mission
Our Strategy

Overview
Monitoring and Evaluation
The Current State of Metering Challenges

Current Challenges
Goals

Governance

Honourable Minister of Power
(Chairman)

Special Adviser to the President on Energy (Secretary)

Honourable Minister of Finance

Minister of Budget and Economic Planning

Chairman, NERC

MD, NSIA

Private Sector Representative

Private Sector Representative
FAQs

The PMI is a government-led initiative aimed at addressing the significant metering gap in Nigeria’s electricity supply industry. It focuses on deploying smart meters to enhance billing accuracy, reduce energy losses, and support local manufacturing.
Currently, over half of Nigeria’s registered electricity consumers lack proper metering, leading to revenue losses and inaccurate billing. The PMI seeks to correct this by ensuring every consumer has access to a smart meter, thereby promoting a more efficient and transparent energy sector.
The initiative is managed by Smart Grid Development Limited (SGDL), a Special Purpose Vehicle created by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated. SGDL operates as both a demand aggregator and a bulk equipment purchaser to ensure cost efficiency and effectiveness.
The PMI aims to provide all consumers with smart meters, which will ensure they are only billed for the electricity they actually use. This will eliminate estimated billing and improve the overall fairness and transparency of the billing process.
The short-term goals include the reduction of distribution losses and the improvement of billing accuracy through smart meters and a Meter Data Management System (MDMS). Long-term goals focus on ensuring tariffs reflect actual costs and reducing technical losses through better infrastructure and technology.
The initiative is supported by government funding and strategic partnerships with both local and international meter manufacturers. This approach facilitates bulk purchasing and demand aggregation to achieve cost efficiencies.
The initiative is overseen by a Coordinating Committee chaired by the Honourable Minister of Power. This committee includes key government officials and private sector representatives who ensure the initiative meets its goals and adheres to national standards.
As of June 2023, there were 12,561,049 registered electricity consumers in Nigeria. However, only 42% of these consumers, amounting to 5,546,483 individuals, were equipped with meters. This leaves a significant 58% of registered customers without meters, relying on a capped estimated energy billing system.
The metering gap varies significantly across different regions and DisCos. For instance, as per the latest data:
– Ikeja DisCo has the highest metering rate at 70.39%.
– Yola DisCo has the lowest at 21.79%.
– Other regions like Abuja and Eko have metering rates of 59.78% and 59.02%, respectively.
The large metering gap has led to billing inaccuracies, significant revenue deficits, and suboptimal energy consumption patterns. This has further contributed to high Aggregate Technical Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses, which are primarily due to low meter penetration.
The PMI plans to install 7 million smart end-user meters and 150,000 distribution transformer meters to address the metering gap. By deploying smart meters and integrating them with a Meter Data Management System (MDMS), the initiative aims to reduce losses and improve the accuracy and fairness of billing.
By closing the metering gap, the PMI seeks to enhance financial liquidity in the power sector, improve energy delivery infrastructure, and ensure that tariffs reflect only prudent and reasonable expenses. The initiative also aims to reduce technical losses through better system metering at various levels of the electricity supply chain.