The story of Nigeria’s power sector since independence has been a tale of lamentation for customers, especially for millions of unmetered ones, who at the end of every month were always made to pay for electricity not supplied.
Even, for those with supplied meters, the story has also been bad when analyzed within the context of the fact that the old officials of the old Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA) and the modern day Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) always make them to pay, in most cases, higher than their consumption by failing to read their meters before billing them.
However, the story has changed in recent years as the deployment of meters have restored hope to the hitherto helpless consumers, who are paying electricity bills based on their consumption rates. Yes, the story may not be totally sweet for all consumers as the deployment of prepaid meters is still in shortfall, but the abuses that characterized the billing regime in the past decades are ebbing as the regulatory authorities, especially the Nigerian Electricity Management Service Agency (NEMSA) and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) are trying to holistically reform the sector and make it consumer and investor-friendly for the benefits of all stakeholders, particularly the nation’s economic players.
For instance, for the past two months, the Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) with the backing of agencies in the power sector like NEMSA and the NERC have flagged off public announcement regarding the issuance of Standard Transfer Specification (STS) prepayment meters upgrading by means of Token Identifier (TID) rollover as part of their collaborative efforts to improve the revenue efficiency of the sector and create a win-win situation for service providers and consumers.
The Token Identifier, in a publication by the NEMSA, is a 24-bit field, contained in standard transfer specification (STS) compliant tokens, that identifies the date and time of the token generation that is also used to determine if a token has already been used in a payment meter. However, the incrementing of the 24-bit field simply means that at some point in time, the TID value will roll over to a zero value, therefore, all STS prepayment meters will be affected by TID rollover before end of November 2024, which also means all meters will require Key Change Tokens with the roll over bit set.
As earlier reported, the prepaid meter upgrade exercise was said to commence from August 1 to terminate by November 24, 2024. This exactly span for a period of 15 months to enable consumers get the ‘Two Key Change Tokens’ (KCT1 and KCT2) required for the upgrading exercise in a seamless manner.
The essence of this initiative is to align users in Nigeria with a global software update that will affect all prepaid meters from November 24, 2024, which will cause meters to stop accepting old tokens unless they are upgraded. Therefore, to make sure that prepaid electricity vending systems is more secure as well as Token Identifier (TID) rollover compliant, hence, consumers are encouraged to upgrade their meters as soon as possible to ensure token compatibility and to avoid having any issues with it.
To ensure the necessary infrastructure and awareness campaign is provided for all STS users to be aware of the requirement, the DisCos have in various ways unveiled steps to assist consumers in the execution of the TID rollover key change token exercise. The following are some basic steps provided by the DisCos in the industry in the past few days:
First step, to acquire KCT tokens, consumers are expected to visit any of the Electricity Distribution Companies and request for the tokens if you are yet to receive them at your first vending after August 1. Secondly, to load the KCT1 token, users must ensure the meter is powered on, then enter the token in the meter using keypad or the meter’s users interface (UIU, CIU). Once successfully accepted, your meter may show ‘successful or blank space’. The third step is loading the KCT2 token, users are expected to enter into their meters the token using same method bas before. Once successfully accepted, the meter may show ‘ok or good’. And lastly, to load energy token, if the consumer have also purchased a vending token, he or she is expected enter it into the meter, that is, after loading the KCT2 tokens to complete the upgrading process.
For consumers residing in the West under Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), copy or type this link provided “imole.ibedc.com” to generate your KCT token which is a set of 20-digit codes. If lives in Lagos and are using Ikeja Electric, simply visit this website “https://smartkyc.ikejaelectric.com/nin” to link your meter number and NIN. And will receive three (3) sets of 20-digit upon vending from November 1, 2023.
However, appraising this TID rollover process, consumers in different parts of Nigeria have aired their views, which clearly reflected that many of them were satisfied with the timeframe provided for upgrading of the meters, whilst calling on the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to ensure that the process is carried out with ease with being frustrated in the long run.
Mr. Tony Akuba, a graduate of business administration and a businessman, in Abuja, said his okay with the timeframe but there should be proper monitoring of the process by regulatory body. He also expressed concern on the process being free, claiming that there’s possibility it may no longer be free in the future as there could be changes anytime from the distributors.
Another meter users, Mr. Itodo Paul, a teacher in Abuja, who expressed fear, said he preferred to wait to see how it goes rather than rushing to request for the tokens. He added, “Someone told me that by upgrading, the user will be connected to postpaid from which will upgraded because a lot of people are doing by-pass. Is better to hold on, and see how it works if it’s something that is workable. Because you might end up tampering with the meter and they (Distributors) will not want to connect you directly”.
Another meter user, Leonard Igweze, who lives in Niger State, said that he was just hearing about the meter upgrade campaign and hoped it worked well for the benefit of electricity consumers.
Also speaking, Mrs. Stella Ologbemila, a Lagos resident, said it was her first time of hearing about it. She asked: “How do electricity companies start something that people don’t know about and then they are already giving a deadline”? She also urged for an increased awareness so that a lot of people can be enlightened.
Mrs. Ologbemla further recommended for a wider distribution of the repayment meters to avoid living behind multitude of people while sought the intervention of the regulators to subsequently monitor the process to ensure for each month there’s increased number turn up by users.
Another meter user, Mrs. Aishatu Bello, a resident of FCT, who expressed delight, appreciated for the opportunity to get to know of the clamouring for upgrading of meters by the DisCos, promised to visit the nearest office to request for the KCT token.
She also said, “This decision is a welcome one. I hope I will not regret upgrading my meter and I hope this idea is for the good of Nigerians who use prepaid meters”.
In the face of the development, the New National Star advice to all prepaid meter users is that if they encounter any issues or have questions during the token loading process, should contact the nearby DisCo office for assistance, and it is not something to panic over as it is said to be free of charge.
As promised by the regulatory authorities, the electricity prepayment token that is already being keyed into the meters will not be affected, even the speed will also not be affected. Therefore, it is expected that every STS user should adhere to this warning before November 24, 2024, otherwise, the meter will become useless and it will lead to purchasing another meter at the revised cost which is now N88,123.76 per single phase and over N154,622.73 for three phase.
While carrying out this report, it was discovered that so many consumers were not using prepaid meters, thus, it is crucial for the DisCos to accelerate sensitization reach even at the grassroots level and get more meters deployed in order to build customers’ confidence in the transformational drive to ensure efficiency in power supply and billing system nationwide.