Mainpower Electricity Distribution Limited has spoken out on the lingering power failure currently being experienced in some parts of Enugu State. It blamed the development on the electricity tariff controversy. The disco made this known in a notice on Monday. Sources hinted that mostly affected are customers under Bands B-E.
The outage in the past four days is due to a significant drop in energy allocation from its parent company, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, following the Enugu Electricity Regulatory Commission (EERC) Multi-Year-Tariff order for Band A customers of N160.40 per kilowatt-hour from N209 per kilowatt-hour, according to the Disco.
Mainpower explained that after analysing the implications of the EERC’s MYTO, it will result in a monthly loss of over N1 billion to EEDC.
“This development is a result of the recent issuance of a new tariff order to Mainpower by the Enugu Electricity Regulatory Commission (EERC). The order reduced the tariff for Band A customers from N209.50/kWh to N160.40/kWh.
“Upon receipt of the tariff order, MEDL, by obligation, promptly updated EEDC (our energy supplier). After analysing the implications of the new tariff, EEDC concluded that implementing it would result in a monthly loss of over N1 billion, which makes it impossible for EEDC to meet her obligations to the market.
“Consequently, and to mitigate these losses, EEDC made the difficult decision to reduce the volume of energy supplied to MEDL. This has unfortunately resulted in MEDL receiving only about 50 percent of its usual energy allocation, significantly affecting our ability to serve some of our esteemed customers.
“It is important to clarify that MEDL does not receive electricity directly from National Grid. Instead, we rely solely on EEDC, which holds the vesting contract agreement with the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET), the organisation responsible for electricity bulk trading”.
NewsBits recalls that Discos, the Electricity Generation Company, and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission all kicked against the tariff reduction. The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Power, also rejected it, but EERC said there was no going back. EERC had, apart from the tariff reduction, also frozen Bands B-E.
