Ikeja Electric spends N11bn on electricity infrastructure upgrade

The Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ikeja Electric (IE), Mr. Anthony Youdeowei, said that investments for electricity infrastructure upgrade by IE have hit N11 billion since its take over as the core investor three years ago. He made this known at a media round-table for energy editors in Lagos.

New Telegraph reports that he maintained that the N11 billion investments cover total hardcore expenditure including, asset mapping, statistical metering, trading point metering, consumer metering and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), among others.

He regretted that IE spends about fifty per cent of maintenance budget on replacement of vandalised equipment, saying this is taking a toll on its operational expenses. On metering, he said consumers should bear with the firm over its inability to meter every consumer, due to the rising cost of procuring meters occasioned by the fluctuations in exchange rate.

The company, he stated, had concluded arrangements to meter all trading points from the feeder to distribution transformers and down to consumers. The idea, he stressed is to determine the power supplied to a particular area and then bill customers based on consumption.

Already, he said about 700,000 consumers have been enumerated to be under its network, adding that the agreement with the regulator was to meter all consumers within five years. ‘‘But the challenge is, as you are trying to close the metering gap, more communities are opening up. And we have a responsibility to meter them all,’’ he said. “We have forex constraints, but we are still ordering meter but the pace is slow.

Single phase meter landing cost is about N100,000 and maximum return is 10 per cent and it takes about 7 years to recover cost of a meter.”

Corroborating Youdeowei’s view, the firm’s General Manager, Commercial, Folake Soetan, explained that estimated billing is not illegal, noting that the firm has come up with an acceptable billing formula for non metered customers, New Telegraph reports.

Source: New Telegraph