Nepra’s shift from internet metering to internet billing attracts criticism over rooftop photo voltaic impression

The Nationwide Electrical Energy Regulatory Authority’s (Nepra) transfer to abolish the web metering system and substitute it with a internet billing framework below the Prosumer Rules 2026 has sparked widespread criticism from politicians, former officers and vitality specialists, who argue it should disincentivise rooftop photo voltaic adoption and worsen energy sector inefficiencies.

Political and professional reactions

Former Sindh governor and PML-N chief Mohammad Zubair wrote on X: “This authorities continues to show it has no options to our financial challenges particularly energy sector,” and requested why residents ought to “pay further simply because this authorities is inefficient, incompetent and has no creativeness.”

PPP’s Senator Sherry Rehman mentioned in a thread that the foundations “won’t solely decelerate the nation’s vitality transition and contradict Pakistan’s local weather commitments, it should, fairly actually, punish residents for producing clear, reasonably priced vitality.” She added the change “rewards inefficiency, and props up an ageing distribution system that ought to have been privatised or given to the provinces way back.”

Ammar Rashid, an activist and researcher, referred to as the choice “disastrous,” saying it “explicitly goals to gradual Pakistan’s consumer-led clear vitality transition” and accused authorities of penalising photo voltaic customers “to guard the pursuits of IPPs, extort extra income, cowl DISCO inefficiencies & delay reform of the grid.”

Energy sector professional and former official Shahid Shafi Sial posted that the shift “addressed a long-standing anomaly” and described the change as “politically tough,” whereas cautioning it “received’t repair the facility sector” or resolve points comparable to capability funds.

PTI chief and former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa finance minister Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra mentioned the federal government had used Nepra to entrance the choice and warned it may spur elevated battery adoption and off-grid uptake.

Former finance minister Miftah Ismail underscored the stark pricing imbalance, noting that customers can pay full retail charges whereas receiving far decrease compensation for extra solar energy, a dynamic he portrayed as advantageous to the state however unfair to residents. Customers would purchase electrical energy at about Rs40 per unit whereas surplus could be purchased again at about Rs11, with tax therapy widening the hole.

Former data minister and PTI chief Fawad Chaudhry additionally criticised the choice, framing it as a part of what he described as a broader burden on home customers. In a put up on X, he alleged that electrical energy tariffs have been being raised for households whereas photo voltaic internet metering was being “virtually abolished” to offer reduction to industrialists. He additional used the reference of “Ayub Khan’s 22 households” to argue that financial energy had expanded to a a lot bigger elite, naming the Zardari and Sharif households on this context.

Former finance minister and PTI chief Hammad Azhar additionally weighed in, criticising what he described as inconsistent and retroactive policymaking within the energy sector. In a put up on X, he mentioned present selections have been successfully encouraging a shift in the direction of battery-based off-grid photo voltaic options, warning that such measures threat making the nationwide grid “irrelevant”. Azhar additionally pointed to final yr’s sharp enhance in fastened vitality prices for industries, calling it a coverage “blunder” that had already undermined confidence within the sector.

Underneath the brand new guidelines, utilities will buy extra electrical energy from prosumers on the nationwide common vitality buy worth whereas promoting electrical energy to customers on the relevant client tariff, successfully ending one-for-one unit alternate below internet metering, Nepra mentioned. The buyback fee for surplus era has been mentioned at about Rs11 per unit, whereas customers proceed to pay grid tariffs that may exceed Rs40 per unit. The regulator has additionally decreased the usual contract time period from seven years to 5.

The rules apply to photo voltaic, wind, and biogas programs and cap the utmost measurement of a distributed era facility at 1 megawatt, with system capability restricted to the buyer’s sanctioned load. Nepra has launched a technical restriction that bars new connections if era on a transformer reaches 80% of its rated capability, and amenities of 250kW and above should bear a compulsory load-flow research, the report mentioned. Present prosumers will stay below their present agreements till expiry.

Monetary and operational obligations additionally shift below the brand new framework: prosumers will bear interconnection prices, together with meters and grid upgrades, Nepra mentioned, and the regulator has launched a non-refundable concurrence charge of Rs1,000 per kilowatt. Metering should assist two-way measurement, both via a single bi-directional meter or twin meters. Nepra has retained powers to revise buy charges in the course of the lifetime of agreements and to challenge binding instructions.