Lowering electricity bills in Nigeria
Estimated billing and metering are among the top complaints that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC receives yearly, data shows.
The NERC does have a regulation to cap the limit by 60 kilowatts monthly for distribution companies (DisCos) to charge unmetered electricity households and businesses.
This, however, appears to be failing as DisCos continue the practice of overcharging in the name of estimated billing.
Excess electricity tariff is killing small businesses especially those who don’t have manual control of the meter and get estimated bills.
Consequently, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has said that it will launch a billing capping order enforcement of the NERC for consumers’ welfare.
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The said FCCPC enforcement would probably help small business owners and households in Nigeria lower electricity tariff, but it could also take a while to become operational.
There are other ways to lower electricity tariffs in Nigeria now and that includes tweaking usage to lower the bills by as much as 25 per cent.
How to lower electricity bills in Nigeria
- Replace energy-consuming light bulbs and other appliances with energy savers.
- Dimmers switches could be useful for controlling light bulbs and saving electricity too.
- Leaking faucets can waste gallons of water, fix them.
- Lower the temperature on the refrigerators and freezers from time to time.
- When using washers, avoid the hot water function and use the cold water instead.
- Set the thermostat on the air conditioners to be on 15 degrees or turn them off completely when leaving the home or business area. This can cut the electricity bill in Nigeria by at least 5 per cent annually depending on how many ACs are in the building.
- Reducing shower time by at least two minutes can cut water usage by five gallons and, therefore, electricity tariffs.
- Control the temperature on the water heaters
- Get smart power strips to cut supply to electronic devices that use remote control and therefore would go usually go into sleep mode.
- Most effective in reducing electricity bill in Nigeria is to ask DisCos to provide an audit to help identify bill reduction options.