Further, customers had to wait in long queues at a service center to pay their bills. They paid bills three or four months after consuming electricity estimated by the utility. As a result, Ikeja suffered a loss of more than USD $75 million per month. More important, more than 40 percent of customers did not pay for the electricity they consumed. The overall line-loss rate exceeded 45 percent, partly because the electric power infrastructure was outdated. The main issues were electric power that was not paid for or was paid for long after consumption. Ikeja faced challenges familiar to any utility in the developing world. To cope with the competition, Ikeja planned to deploy an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and stimulate revenue growth. Ikeja’s production capacity and revenue rank first in Nigeria however, the second-place utility comes close. It has more than 530,000 customers and provides more than 20 million GWh of power annually. One of 11 power utilities in Nigeria, Ikeja Electric generates and distributes power for three states.
