Roof solar net metering shifts Rs159bn burden on grid consumers

ISLAMABAD: Roof solar net metering facility has shifted a burden of Rs159 billion onto grid consumers through an additional tariff hike of Rs1.5 per unit.

This has been disclosed in the latest data of Power Division showing the adverse impact of net metering facility on consumers using only grid electricity. The net metering consumers are not paying grid storage cost and capacity payment of the plants which do not run due to solar panel additions.

According to the data, the number of roof solar net meeting consumers have increased to 283,000 from 226,440 registered in October 2024. It indicates that in the last 4 months, more solar roof panels of 800MW have been added to the system, increasing burden on consumers relying on grid electricity only.

Power Division’s top officials fear if the new policy is not timely introduced, in the next 10 years burden on the system because of existing rooftop solar policy, would exceed the staggering figure of Rs503 billion, which would be passed on to poor consumers.

Official documents reveal that high-income strata of the society, living in posh areas of eight big cities, has taken an advantage of decreasing prices of solar technology. They not only managed to bring down their monthly electricity cost by 35 percent, but also shifted the burden of Rs103 billion to consumers who have not installed rooftop solarisation systems.

In 2021, there were connections of solar net metering of 321MW which have increased to 3,277MW in three years. The official documents also show that solar connections with net metering can go up to 12,377MWs by the year 2034.

The documents also reveal that a large number of consumers of Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan, Peshawar, Sialkot and Rawalpindi have joined the net metering system.

So far the net metering consumers have increased to 226,440 in numbers, which are just 0.6 percent of the total electricity consumers that stand at 37 million. However, the officials said the government has started working to bring down buyback tariff of net metering consumers to Rs8-9 per unit from existing Rs27 per unit with the enforcement of gross metering.

Under the plan, national grid will buy electricity from rooftop solar at Rs8-9 per unit instead of the current rate of Rs27 per unit. More importantly, the gross-metering mechanism may replace the existing net-metering system.

“The relevant authorities want the introduction of new policy under which solar consumers will get back their investment on rooftop solar systems in 4-5 years, not in two years,” one of the top officials of the Energy Ministry told The News.

The gross metering differs from the net metering in terms of the working strategy. In gross metering, the electricity that is produced by solar system, one cannot use it directly. Two electric meters operate in this regard. The first one allows the export of all the generative electricity to the grid station, while the other calculates the units of imported electricity.

The tariff prices of both electric meters are different from each other. The prices of the units that import are higher as compared to the units that export. Therefore, one cannot get a zero electricity bill. You have to pay at least a little, but not a zero.