Nigeria has procured at least 1.37 million electricity meters from China under the $500 million World Bank-funded Nigeria Distribution Sector Recovery Programme, as the Federal Government intensifies efforts to bridge a metering shortfall impacting millions of power consumers.
This was disclosed in a restructuring document published on the bank’s website.
The document indicates that a contract for the initial batch of 1.44 million meters was signed in August 2024 and took effect in February 2025.
The bank stated, “The contract for the procurement of the first batch of 1.44 million meters was signed in August 2024, and the contract has been effective since February 2025.
“To date, 408,000 meters have arrived in Nigeria, of which 130,000 meters have been installed. Almost all meters in this first batch (95 per cent) have been manufactured, and they are either in China or in transit to Nigeria.”
Ninety-five per cent of the 1.44 million meters equals 1,368,000 units—approximately 1.37 million—already manufactured in China and either shipped or awaiting delivery to Nigeria under the loan programme.
The Nigeria Distribution Sector Recovery Programme, funded by the World Bank, was approved on February 4, 2021, with a total commitment of $500 million, according to The Punch.
“The Programme Development Objective is to improve financial and technical performance of the electricity distribution companies,” the report stated.
A disbursement summary in the report indicates that of the $500 million commitment from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, only $69.09 million had been released, leaving $404.72 million undisbursed. This reflects a disbursement rate of 13.82 per cent as of the reporting date.
The programme is designed as a hybrid operation, combining a $250 million Program-for-Results (PforR) component with a $250 million Investment Project Financing component.
The IPF segment supports bulk procurement of meters and meter data management systems to help close the metering gap, while also funding a Data Aggregation Platform, technical assistance, and capacity-building initiatives.
The bank noted that “currently close to 60 per cent of electricity customers connected to the national grid are unmetered and closing the metering gap is a top priority of DisCos that suffer from significant losses, the majority of which come from non-technical issues.”
The restructuring paper also ties the programme to the Presidential Metering Initiative, approved in November 2023, which aims to deploy more than five million smart meters by 2027 and cut Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collection losses from over 40 per cent to 20 per cent within three years.
The document states, “The DISREP Program supports the PMI by procuring an additional 3.2 million meters.”
It also notes that Nigeria has over seven million unmetered customers and roughly three million cascading connections, leaving a total metering gap of about 10 million customers.
Beyond the initial 1.44 million meters, the bank noted that contracts for 217,000 domestically procured smart meters are expected to be signed by the end of January 2026, while the procurement of a second batch of 1.5 million smart meters was launched on January 12, 2026.
The restructuring also introduces a new intermediate results indicator tracking the number of people gaining direct access to electricity through new connections.
Using an average household size of 4.1 persons, the bank estimates that the 3.2 million meters to be installed under the programme will provide electricity access to roughly four million people.
Meanwhile, the Association of Meter Manufacturers of Nigeria had earlier opposed awarding meter contracts to Chinese firms, citing existing local production capacity.
The association stated its support for President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Nigeria First Policy,’ which prohibits the importation of goods that can be produced domestically.
