The Government of Nigeria has presented a new electricity distribution policy named “Willing Seller, Willing Buyer”. Under the scheme, electricity would be wheeled directly from the generation companies to willing consumers who are ready to fully pay their bills. The objective is to reduce power losses and assist generation companies, which have not been receiving full payment for their output over time. The policy has already been experimented in two pilot States.
In October 2019, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) threatened to suspend licences of eight regional distribution companies over eleventh as failed to pay for the electricity they bought from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET), the Nigerian bulk trader. Indeed, the eight companies acquired for NGN36.1bn (US$100m) of energy from NBET in July 2019, but payback to the public entity only NGN5.9bn (US$16m).