Victor Ezeja
Aba Power Ltd has announced adjustment of its electricity tariff for band A customers. This is coming two months after other 11 electricity distribution companies did so due to the prevailing economic situation in Nigeria.
Aba Power Managing Director, Ugo Opiegbe, who confirmed this to newsmen in an interview, explained that Band A Maximum Demand (MD) customers, who receive power for at least 20 hours daily, will now pay between N114.66 and N117.1 per kilowatt hour (KWh), from N109.79 KWh.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelHe further said that non-MD customers in Band A, will have a lower tariff of N106.56/kWh.
“It is still the lowest in the country for that category of customers,” Opiegbe said.
He claimed that what the company is charging contrasts sharply with rates charged by other electricity firms.
Prime Business Africa recalls that the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had on April 3, 2024, approved increase in electricity tariff for band A customers in line with tbe Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO) which provides for provides for periodic adjustment of tariff when there is increase in cost of gas, foreign exchange rates, and inflation rate among others.
NERC initially approved that DisCos should increase their tariff from N66KWh to N225KWh for Band A customers who are said to make up 15 per cent of electricity users in the country. However, the Commission later in early May, ordered its reduction to N206.80KWh.
READ ALSO: NERC Reduces Band A Electricity Tariff To N206/kWh
“Our Band A MD customers are primarily industrialists who are unfortunately experiencing serious headwinds, and it is because of them that Professor Bart Nnaji, the founder and chairman of the Geometric Power Group, established the 188-MW gas-fired plant in the Osisioma Industrial Layout of Aba,” Opiegbe noted.
The Southeast zone of the Electricity Consumers Association of Nigeria (ECAN) had three weeks ago commended Aba Power for retaining the 2023 approved tariff structure in nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia where it currently supplies electricity.
“Yet, this is the only DisCo in the nation that has not benefitted from the trillions of naira paid to others in subsidy since the privatization of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) assets in November 2013,” observed the ECAN Southeast zonal chairman, Engr Joe Ubani, and the secretary, Comrade Chris Okpara.
On his part, Engr Cliff Eneh, a former senior manager with the defunct National Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (NEPA), said Professor Nnaji and Geometric Power are making “huge self-sacrificing”.
He added: “Frankly, they behave like people in a vocation whose mission is to provide affordable, quality, and constant power to the citizens, despite all they have gone through in the last 20 years.”
Aba Power is a subsidiary of Geometric Power, founded by Professor Bart Nnaji, a former Minister of Power.
The Aba Independent Power Project, which began operations in September 2022, was commissioned in February this year and supplies electricity to nine out of the 17 local government areas in Abia State.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
