Bringing Light TO A RISING NATION
Energy Feature
IBEDC
Bringing Light TO A RISING NATION 2
Issue 101 · Business Enquirer Magazine
Business Enquirer Magazine · Issue 101
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PROJECT DIRECTED BY
WRITTEN BY
Jamie Waite
Jay Benmehidi
Energy Feature the company into a better, more streamlined service provider, IBEDC has managed to achieve real results against difficult odds and, despite the ongoing supply deficit, bring light, warmth, and hope to a growing number of homes within its franchise (Oyo ,Ogun ,Osun ,Kwara, parts of Kogi, Ekiti, and Niger States) When asked how such progress has been made, Ayodele’s answer is simple: modernisation and reformation, a process which began following the company’s inception in 2013 when it soon became clear improvements needed to be made: “At the beginning, we quickly found we had inherited totally dilapidated infrastructure - substations, the old systems, etc. All of it. There was a lot of work to do, and the first question we asked was how do we start modernising the system? And if we can’t modernise parts of it, how can we least make it functional?
I
n little more than a decade, Nigeria has emerged to become the shining star of the African economy and a potential economic superpower of the future – a grand claim indeed, but as figures suggest it is a claim with merit. Such promise has not gone unnoticed by the wider economic community, and FDI flows into Nigeria have increased markedly in recent years which has further fuelled GDP growth and the country’s growing prosperity. Obstacles remain that could yet derail the country’s growth and development ambition, however, not least of these being the troubled state of Nigeria’s energy sector which continues to be hampered by inadequate supply and an array of other challenges: “The industry is certainly improving, but there is still a long way to go,” explained Engr. John Ayodele, Chief Operating Officer of Ibadan Elec4
Issue 101 · Business Enquirer Magazine
So the first thing we started doing was to improve our infrastructure. Because without infrastructure and electricity there is no way to build a sustainable economy – I haven’t seen any country anywhere in the world that is improving without electricity.” The works that IBEDC has thus far taken to upgrade and improve obsolete infrastructure has certainly borne fruit, to the extent that hundreds of thousands more Ibadan residents are grid-connected, including residences in some of the most remote areas of the province. But this has only been one piece of Ayodele’s strategic jigsaw: wholesale modernisation of IBEDC’s capability has required the company to not only upgrade substations, build power lines and install transformers in difficult-to-reach villages but also completely change its processes and level-up the company’s means of assessing how much electricity it is supplying, and to whom.
tricity Distribution Company (IBEDC). “Most of the power we receive comes from GENCOs (power generation companies) and embedded generation is picking up, but it has now reached a level where you can’t substitute. So we have a lot of deficits in energy supply, and because of certain problems electricity can sometimes drop below 50% of what we should normally receive.” This situation has presented quite the headache for IBEDC, one of 11 electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) in Nigeria. Supplying electricity is no easy task even under the most favourable conditions, but for Ayodele and his 2,500-strong workforce the unenviable task of distributing energy supplies to a power-hungry nation that needs more electricity than is currently available can at times feel overwhelming. However, under the watchful gaze of Ayodele, an industry veteran of 42-years who has been, to say the least, rigorous in his efforts to transform Business Enquirer Magazine · Issue 101
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Energy Feature Not that this is an easy task. Since the successful privatisation of the state-owned Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)in 2013, the task of powering the country has fallen to 15 GENCOs and 11 DISCOs, each of which are responsible for a swathe of territory encompassing a number of states. IBEDC, which distributes electricity to Oyo, Ogun, Kwara and Osun states fully – an area known as the civil servant states, owing to their largely residential and commercial customer make-up, is one of the largest DISCOs in Nigeria by measure of customers served. Today, IBEDC has more than two million customers on its database and rising and yet there are a great many more customers who are as of yet unregistered, and for those that are registered the company has incomplete information. This has proven to be quite the administration nightmare. To remedy the situation, IBEDC is continuing to implement initiatives that have reformed and digitalised customer billing and, even more importantly, overseeing the installation of electricity meters at newly geotagged and registered properties – a herculean task that has faced some resistance from a change-averse segments of its customer base. “One of the major problems still facing our industry is metering. A lot of customers are not metered. Of course, the rate at which people are developing and building infrastructure, houses, and so forth, the old state-owned PHCN did not have the facility to do that. And since we took over, we have spent at the very least US$20 million dollars rectifying this. We have raised our metering penetration from 300,000 to over 750,000 but we still need an additional 1,263,000 meters to cope, and that will require a further US$30-40 million dollar, maybe about US$75 million investment for us to achieve.
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Energy Feature What is happening now is that the government is also intervening through the World Bank to obtain a US$500 million arrangement, specifically to target metering. I think between now and over the next two years, I would say that any customer should have a meter in their home. Without meters there is no business because some people keep shutting out power and doing all sorts of connections, and we have to keep them on estimated billing, which has no real scientific basis. It’s always creating a problem between consumers and the distribution companies, whether the estimated deal is higher or lower than what they expect.” Tel: +234 9070313848 ISO 9001:2015
The difficulty of overseeing such a vast undertaking and ensuring its success is as difficult as one might imagine, but with the support of its committed and performance-driven workforce, many of whom have been with IBEDC since the beginning, and a loyal base of supply partners who have facilitated the company’s growth over the years, IBEDC has made real progress. These partner companies, such as Covenant Plus and Momas Engineering, for example, have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with IBEDC, helping it to achieve its growth plans and continue on its journey as it strives to evolve into a modern, first-rate utility provider.
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Energy Feature As far as what the future holds for IBEDC, Ayodele is quietly confident. Efforts to continue improving energy distribution capability through further investment in metering and billing will continue, as will efforts to improve customer satisfaction with IBEDC’s service offering. Ayodele concluded: “Over the next 18 months, our focus is service delivery. We have completed a lot of work on our assets, we have completed a lot of work on the infrastructure, we have done a lot of work on building, we have done a lot of work, which is still ongoing with metering. But now how do we focus on our customers to engage them and make sure they are happy with us? We give them the power supply they need at the time they need it. Because most power consumption in Nigeria is for domestic use. People want to come back from work and they can put on their lights and not have to sleep in darkness, power their appliances, etc.
IBEDC
The first thing we started doing was to improve our infrastructure. Because without infrastructure and electricity there is no way to build a sustainable economy – I haven’t seen any country anywhere in the world that is improving without electricity.
So that is our primary assignment for the next two years. Customer focus. In all areas where we can improve supply to customers, that will be our focus for the next two years.”
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Issue 101 · Business Enquirer Magazine
Business Enquirer Magazine · Issue 101
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Ibadan Electric Distribution Company 07001239999 info@ibedc.com www.ibedc.com
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