Govt hints at revising solar net metering policy

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has announced to revise Pakistan’s solar net metering policy, emphasising reduction of losses in the power sector.   

Addressing a press conference, Federal Minister for Energy Sardar Awais Ahmad Leghari pointed out that the country was facing an issue of solar net metering these days.

“Initially, citizens installing solar systems would recover their investment in three years, but now they are recovering their investment in just one to one and a half years,” he said.

The minister said that the PML-N-led government had encouraged solarisation in 2017 and currently, 113,000 connections were present on net meters.

Awais Leghari clarified that while the government is willing to review the solar net metering policy if needed, it supports the continuation of the scheme. “We will also take effective steps to eliminate the menace of power theft to reduce the financial burden on the national exchequer,” he added.

He further detailed that the government was assessing the impacts of an increasing trend of rooftop-generated electricity. “It would be assessed to ascertain the rate of return after making investments in solar equipment,” he said.

He added that they would also study if the increasing reliance on solar panels was impacting the local households in terms of inflated electricity prices. “We will be involved in analysing and balancing the solar net metering.”

Net metering is a billing tool that allows the consumers to send excess energy generated by solar panels to the local grid in exchange of credits to the monthly electric bills.