Pakistan People’s Party MNA Dr Sharmila Farooqui on Monday voiced serious concern over bids to end net metering policy for rooftop solar panels based on cheaper power generation and replace it with gross metering aimed at selling highly expensive and unaffordable grid electricity to consumers.The abolition of net-metering would put a heavy financial burden on those consumers who are using the net metering policy, hence, such a plan is anti-people, she said in a statement.
Sharmila said that there was no need to end the existing solar net metering policy, so discussion and attempts in this regard should be ended forthwith. Sharmila said that the government and its coalition partners were already in favour of boosting solar energy to save money and protect the environment, hence, ending net-metering would be a negativity and a blow to the public and small investors.She said that the PML-N government had launched solar net metering in 2017, and now over 100,000 solar connections are on net metering, therefore, ending this policy would inflict a heavy financial loss on those who had made huge investments in it.Sharmila said: “One of the primary advantages of net metering is the potential for significant cost savings on electricity bills.
By earning credits for excess energy generation, homeowners can offset their energy costs during periods of lower solar production.”The PPP MNA said that the gross metering policy for rooftop solar would slash financial benefits of the in-house solar power generation, so, there was a dire need to boost solar energy to a larger level. The policymakers are mulling rationalization of buyback rates of net metering electricity to Rs 11 per unit from current rates of Rs 21 per unit, which would never be accepted as it is an anti-people act, she maintained.
“Net metering allows consumers to sell excess electricity produced by their solar system to their power distribution company, resulting in significant savings in their electricity bill for the month, but under the gross metering mechanism, the electricity generated by consumers’ rooftop solar systems is fed into the national grid, which they will then buy from the disco, potentially reducing the monetary benefit,” Sharmila observed.
