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Two neighbours on the same street can pay the exact same ₦2,000 for electricity and end up with very different numbers of units on their meter. That is not a fault, a scam, or your disco shortchanging you — it is the band system, and once you see the maths behind it, the gap makes sense.

What a "band" actually is

Since 2024, Nigeria's Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has grouped every feeder line — the actual cable serving your street or estate — into a band based on how many hours of power it is measured to supply per day, averaged over time. Your band is a property of your feeder, not of you personally, and it is what your disco uses to decide which tariff you pay per kWh.

Band A to E: hours of supply and what you pay per unit

These are the national reference rates NERC prices from. Your own disco can be approved to bill slightly differently within its band — EEDC, for instance, currently bills ₦160/kWh on Band A rather than the ₦209.50 reference. Check the rate printed on your own receipt or your disco's tariff page rather than assuming the table above is your exact number.

The pattern is simple once you see it: the more hours you are guaranteed, the more you pay per unit. Band A is priced close to what it actually costs to generate and deliver that power reliably (a "cost-reflective" tariff); Bands B through E stay subsidised, which is the trade the lower bands are making — cheaper units, fewer guaranteed hours.

Wait — is there a Band F?

No. A lot of people search for it, understandably — if E is the worst band, it feels like there should be an F below it for areas that barely get power at all. There isn't. NERC's structure stops at Band E, and any feeder averaging under 4 hours a day is still just classed as Band E, same tariff as a feeder getting a full 7. TheCable put it bluntly: the worst-served customers in the country don't even get a band of their own to describe how bad their supply is. If your area is on Band E and getting closer to 0 hours than 7, you are not imagining that the system undercounts you — that is a real, documented gap in how the bands are drawn, not something you are getting wrong.

How a ₦2,000 recharge actually becomes units

Two steps happen between the amount you pay and the units that land on your meter:

1. VAT comes off the top first. Electricity recharges carry 7.5% VAT. On ₦2,000, that is ₦150, leaving ₦1,850 to actually buy energy.
2. What is left is divided by your band's per-kWh rate. That division is where the band you're on makes the real difference.

Here is that ₦1,850 (after VAT) run through every band's reference rate, so you can see the spread on the exact same ₦2,000 recharge:

Worked as ₦2,000 × 0.925 ÷ rate. Your own receipt can land a few naira off this if your disco applies a debt-recovery or standing charge on top of VAT — that shows up as a separate line, and you subtract it before dividing. The ratio between bands stays the same either way.

Same ₦2,000, more than five times the energy on Band E as on Band A. That is not Band A customers being cheated — it is the price of the extra 13-16 guaranteed hours a day they are (in theory) getting over Band E. Whether that trade is worth it to you depends entirely on whether your feeder actually delivers those hours.

So is Band A a rip-off?

Not on the pricing logic — paying more for a resource-heavy, always-on supply is how utility pricing works everywhere. The genuine complaint, the one that actually gets raised in the National Assembly and in NERC's own hearings, is Band A customers paying the premium rate on months where their feeder quietly under-delivers the 20 hours it's priced on. NERC has since said Band A customers are entitled to compensation for supply that falls short of the promised hours — worth knowing if that's happened to you, and worth checking your disco's specific compensation process rather than assuming it's automatic.

How to check which band you're on

Your band is usually printed on your prepaid token SMS or vending receipt, and every disco now publishes a band checker on its own website or app where you enter your meter or account number. You cannot request an upgrade yourself — it's assigned to your feeder based on measured supply, reviewed periodically by your disco and NERC, not something an individual customer can opt into.

Questions people ask

Can my band change without warning?
Yes — bands are reviewed periodically against actual measured hours, so a feeder can move up or down if supply genuinely changes. Your disco is required to notify affected customers.

Why did my units drop even though I paid the same amount as last time?
Usually one of two things: your band or your disco's approved rate changed between recharges, or a debt-recovery/standing charge is now being deducted before the energy calculation. Check the breakdown printed on the token SMS.

Does a postpaid meter use the same band pricing as prepaid?
Yes — the band determines your tariff either way. Prepaid just makes the maths visible immediately, since you see the units land the moment you recharge.

Is Band A available everywhere?
No — it depends entirely on what your specific feeder can measurably deliver. You cannot request to be moved onto Band A by paying more; it follows the infrastructure, not the customer.

Related

• Buy an electricity token on ABS Vendor
• See today's data, airtime and bill payment rates

Full disclosure: ABS Vendor sells prepaid and postpaid electricity tokens across the major discos. The band and tariff figures above are NERC's published structure and independently reported rates, cited at each claim, not our own numbers.