Three international customers served from the Nigerian grid paid only $7.125 million of the $18.69 million invoiced to them in the third quarter of 2025,the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, has said.
Disclosing this in its latest industry report, the commission said the debt represents a remittance rate of 38.09 per cent, while domestic bilateral customers paid ₦3.19 billion of ₦3.64 billion, or 87.61 per cent, for services rendered in the same period.
NERC maintained that improving remittance compliance across all customer classes, combined with ongoing federal subsidies that have absorbed about 59 per cent of generation costs through frozen end‑user tariffs, remains central to stabilising cash flows in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry.
According to the report, Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies remitted a total of ₦381.29 billion to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) and the Market Operator (MO) in the third quarter of 2025.
The Commission puts the DisCos’ combined upstream invoice at ₦400.48 billion for the period, made up of ₦323.70 billion in DRO‑adjusted generation costs from NBET and ₦76.77 billion in transmission and administrative charges from the MO, leaving an outstanding balance of ₦19.18 billion after remittances.
The DisCos achieved an overall remittance performance of 95.21 per cent, a slight slippage from the 95.65 per cent recorded in the second quarter, even though their total invoice fell by ₦16.87 billion or 4.04 per cent from ₦417.35 billion.
The Commission noted that remittance performance of 95.21 per cent indicates that while liquidity in the market remains relatively strong, there is still a consistent backlog that needs to be cleared to sustain upstream obligations.
The document shows that of the ₦381.29 billion paid in Q3, ₦308.25 billion went to NBET for generation costs, while ₦73.03 billion was settled in favour of the MO for transmission services and related charges.
The Commission said that the remittance outcome rode on improved field performance, with total bills issued to customers in Q3 standing at ₦706.61 billion against an energy offtake valued at ₦854.53 billion, reflecting an aggregate billing efficiency of 82.69 per cent, up from 81.61 per cent in Q2.
Collections also increased as DisCos recovered ₦570.25 billion of the amount billed, raising collection efficiency to 80.70 per cent compared with 76.07 per cent in the preceding quarter.
A total of ₦570.25 billion was collected by all DisCos in 2025/Q3 out of the ₦706.61 billion billed to customers,” the regulator said, adding that the gain of 4.63 percentage points in collection efficiency did not fully translate into higher remittance ratios.
The report underscores that high Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses continue to weigh on market liquidity despite the relatively strong remittance percentage.
The Commission added that weighted average ATC&C loss across the 11 DisCos stood at 33.27 per cent in Q3, still 12.73 percentage points above the 2025 Multi‑Year Tariff Order (MYTO) benchmark of 20.54 per cent and equivalent to about ₦108.75 billion in unrecovered revenue that could otherwise have supported upstream payments.
It said that the sustained under‑performance of several DisCos on ATC&C remains a key risk to full market settlement, even in quarters where headline remittance performance exceeds 95 per cent.
