Nigeria sells N23bn worth of electricity to neighbors despite widespread outage

Despite the extensive darkness experienced in several Nigerian communities on Wednesday, power users protested the sale of approximately N23.13 billion worth of electricity from Nigeria to some bordering countries in 2022.

Nigeria continued to export energy to the Republics of Benin and Niger as well as some specific categories of users, according to the most recent information on remittances by foreign customers, which was received from the Nigerian energy Regulatory Commission in Abuja.

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The entire amount of power exported from Nigeria in 2022 was calculated to be $50.98 million (or N23.5 billion, using the official exchange rate of N461/$ as of last year). However, foreign clients sent $32.69 million, or N15.1 billion.

This implies that they failed to remit a total of $18.29m or N8.4bn during the period, while the special customers also did not remit N792.6m in the same period, according to figures obtained from the power sector regulator.

Although some officials at NERC and other agencies in the power sector provided explanations as to why Nigeria was exporting power despite its poor supply in-country, electricity consumers kicked against the move.

Providing updates on the remittances made by special/cross-border customers in the fourth quarter of 2022, the NERC said, “Transcorp-SBEE and Mainstream-NIGELEC received invoices of $3.44m and $5.5m respectively from MO (Market Operator) and made remittances of $0.93m (27.04 per cent) and $5.44m (98.9 per cent) respectively.”

SBEE is Société Beninoise d’Énergie Electrique, a Benin Republic power firm, while NIGELEC, which is Société Nigérienne d’Electricité or Nigerien Electricity Society, is a power utility firm in Niger Republic.

Going by the data from NERC, it implies that the total remittance from Transcorp-SBEE and Mainstream-NIGELEC in the Q4 2022 was $6.37m, while they failed to remit $2.57m in the same quarter.

“However, no remittance was made to the MO by Paras-SBEE and Odukpani-CEET against invoices of $3.03m and $2.02m respectively. The non-settlement of market obligations by this category of market participants should be a call to action for MO to activate relevant safeguards for remittance shortfalls,” the NERC stated.

This implies that the two international customers in this category failed to remit a total of $5.05m in Q4 2022.

The commission went further to state that in Q2 2022, two international customers remitted a total of $7.92m, while $0.01m was not remitted by the firms.

“In 2022/Q2, Transcorp-SBEE and Mainstream-NIGELEC received invoices of $2.42m and $5.56m from MO and remitted $2.42m (100 per cent) and $5.55m (98 per cent) respectively.

“During the same period, Ajaokuta Steel Company was invoiced N264.76m and N66.71m by NBET (Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc) and MO respectively, However, it made no remittance.

“Paras-SBEE and Odukpani-CEET also received invoices of $2.39m and $2.03m respectively from MO during the period but no payment was made by these customers,” the power sector regulator stated.