Plan To Bridge $1bn Meter Funding Gap Begins
New Hampshire Capital, FBNQuest Merchant Bank and Kairos Investments Africa have announced plan to attract long-term financing for the national mass roll-out of smart meters.
The plan, under the national meter asset finance and management SPV also termed MAPCo, is expected to reduce the challenge of metering millions of electricity consumers placed on estimated billing in different parts of the country.
Nigeria’s power sector has suffered from a huge metering gap with more than eight million consumers yet to be metered. The unmetered consumers have been subjected to indiscriminate and unfair estimated billing – a problem inherited by the electricity distribution companies (DisCos).
Financing, which is estimated at $1 billion, has remained a critical part of the efforts at bridging the metering gap.
The groups said, in a statement, that the plan is intended to bridge the huge metering gap in the Nigerian power sector by providing liquidity to the Meter Asset Provider s (MAP) under a securitization structure.
MAPCo will be established as a special purpose vehicle, with the principal objective of raising long-term equity and debt funding from both domestic and foreign capital markets to purchase the meter assets from MAPs.
Chief Executive Officer of New Hampshire Capital, Odion Omonfoman, said: “MAPCo is proposed to be a key component of the Nigeria Power Sector Recovery Program (PSRP) to put the power sector on the path of sustainability and improved electricity services to Nigerians. The SPV will support the mass roll-out of prepaid meters to unmetered consumers and also enable MAPs to provide smart metering solutions to DisCos.”
Head, Capital Markets of FBNQuest Merchant Bank, Oluseun Olatidoy, stated: “The MAPCo SPV will enhance the long term viability of Nigeria’s power sector by leveraging on the depth of the Nigerian capital markets and offer investors unique access to long term investment opportunities through securitization of future receivables backed by the prepaid meter assets.”
