Middle-class Nigerians have a new affliction. It is the Band A anemia, a troubling pain that comes at the end of each month when the electricity bill arrives or as often as those who have a pre-paid meter must buy a token to stay connected to the grid-supplied power.
For many who have completed the payment of school fees for their children, the Band A worry has become even more disturbing, and it is worse for those among them who are in retirement.
Trouble began on April 3rd, 2024, when the regulator sanctioned a 231 percent increase in electricity tariff for all Nigerians who are said to enjoy power supply for at least 20 hours daily and who receive about 40 percent of the total power available on the grid. They form about 15 percent of the total electricity consumers in Nigeria and are classified as ‘Band A’ customers. Later in the year, the regulator raised the tariff for Band A from N206/kWh to N209.5/kWh.
It is believed that this burden, meant to raise the liquidity level of the electricity market, is at least N44.8/kWh or 24.8 percent more than the full and profitable cost of generating a kilowatt of electricity in Nigeria today.
This means that Band A customers are spending a huge part of their monthly earnings on electricity and the bill shoots up for many when their children come home from school.
Hospitals and tertiary institutions are today feeling the pain and rationing of electricity at home has become common.
Last week, I sat with a company CEO who has learnt to defeat the Band A anemia and is willing to tell his story so that others can learn.
According to the business leader who did not want to be named, “I moved into my present apartment eight years ago and because I did not have much space I chose not to go in with an electric generator. Instead, I set up a solar power system in my house with 32 solar panels on my roof, two units of 15kVa inverters and 34 supporting acid batteries. It worked well because with what I had I could use up to four air-conditioning units at the same time while on the inverter for up to 12 hours.
Problem came when the Band A tariff was raised to the roof because I still had to charge my batteries with grid power and whenever I did this, it reflected hugely in my monthly bill which ranged between N750,000-N1,000,000 each month.”
How painful was this for you?
“It was painful, and it’s just my wife and I in the house. All the children have grown and moved out of the house. I devised a mechanism to measure my daily power consumption, and my security man was taught how to report power usage of the house every day. I began to ration power by ensuring that we could stay without switching on the air-conditioners and the swimming pool water pump because they were the appliances that swelled our power bill. But as you know, the temperature has been quite high lately and this means you cannot stay at home without using the air-conditioners. And the more you put them on the more the monthly bill jumps.”
You said you have now rescued yourself from this monthly burden. Please tell us exactly what that means and how you achieved it.
“It is about one month now and my grid power usage has collapsed to no more than one third of what it was at the beginning of this year. This means that I have cut my monthly EKDC power bill to no more than N225,000.”
What did you do to achieve this huge reduction in your power bill?
“I called in the engineer who installed my solar panels eight years ago and narrated my experience and the resulting pain and asked him what options I had to halve my power bill. Among the options he suggested, I chose to go with the one that will cost me about N9 million and for which he supplied and installed 42 units of 275w solar panels, several solar charge controllers, 25A/63A DC breakers. This brought the total number of solar panels on my roof to 74 units. I already had my batteries and my inverters which were able to generate a combined 30kVA of power.”
So, what has changed in the last month?
“My weekly EKDC token loaded has dropped from over N200,000 to below N60,000. I no longer must charge my batteries using grid power. Every day at 8am, I switch completely to my inverters, and this goes on till about midnight.
In the day, that is from 8am when the sun is out. The solar panels generate enough power for the house and to charge the batteries. I can use up to three air-conditioners at a time. I do my ironing with the inverters and my water pumps are also powered by the inverters. There have also been non-financial benefits as well. The most important one for me is that we can now use the air-conditioner in our kitchen while my wife is cooking. When I am at home, I am able to join her in the kitchen and spend quality time with her because the kitchen is no longer as hot as it was before now. We now routinely have our meals in the kitchen, read newspapers and magazines there and this never happened in the past. In addition, I do not have to worry any longer when appliances are being switched on in the house. It is a completely new experience for us and one that is costing us so much less.”
So, where do you go from here sir?
“I expect my current inverter batteries to be due for replacement by the end of the year. I plan to replace them with much improved lithium-ion batteries that are now commonly available in the market in Lagos and which I am told can last up to 10 years and more. Perhaps I will raise the solar panels on my roof to about 100 and thereafter, I should be able to go off the grid completely and bring my EKDC monthly power bill to zero.
The interesting thing is that when I shared my experience with a friend of mine who lives on Victoria Island, it turned out he had also called in engineers to set up a solar panel/inverter system in his home after his experience over the Christmas holidays when the presence of his two children drove his electricity bill near N1.5 million in just one month.”
And what is your message to others like you who can afford to install a similar solar panel/inverter system in their homes and offices?
“What I have today is total liberation and it is the same experience that my friend in VI is having as well. When I go into retirement, I do not have to live in fear of how to pay EKDC their monthly bills. I will be totally free from this so-called Band A anemia.” (BusinessDay)
