- 80-85% prosumers to have the ability to promote electrical energy at Rs25.32 per unit.
- New rooftop photo voltaic customers to be positioned on internet billing mechanism.
- Will promote electrical energy to grid at Rs10-11 per unit beneath 5-year contract.
ISLAMABAD: Round 80-85% of the nation’s present rooftop photo voltaic prosumers will proceed to learn from the prevailing internet metering regime till 2030-31, as the majority of those connections have been permitted throughout FY2024-25, officers mentioned, The Information reported on Wednesday.
These prosumers will proceed promoting surplus electrical energy to the grid at Rs25.32 per unit beneath a seven-year contract, in keeping with the prevailing internet metering coverage.
Nonetheless, new rooftop photo voltaic customers coming beneath the revised coverage framework can be positioned on a internet billing mechanism, permitting them to promote electrical energy to the grid at Rs10-11 per unit beneath a five-year contract.
Below the brand new mechanism, home, industrial, and industrial rooftop photo voltaic customers will buy electrical energy from the grid at their relevant slab-based tariffs, starting from Rs34 to Rs60 per unit.
Officers say the revised construction will enable prosumers to get well their funding inside three to 5 years, in comparison with the sooner 18-month restoration interval, whereas additionally lowering the monetary burden on grid-dependent customers. Extra importantly, the grid — beforehand used as a digital battery by net-metering customers — will now be compensated for offering storage and system assist.
In line with official information, the speedy enlargement of rooftop photo voltaic resulted in a 3.2 billion unit decline in grid electrical energy gross sales in FY2024, inflicting an estimated Rs101 billion income loss for energy distribution corporations. This shortfall contributed to a median tariff improve of Rs0.90 per unit for different electrical energy customers.
Energy Division projections warn that by FY2034, misplaced grid gross sales may rise sharply to 18.8 billion items, translating right into a Rs545 billion monetary influence and a possible tariff improve of Rs5–6 per unit.
“The grid is successfully getting used as battery storage for photo voltaic customers,” an vitality official mentioned, noting that internet metering customers promote surplus energy at excessive buyback charges whereas largely avoiding fastened system fees.
On-grid rooftop photo voltaic capability has surged from simply 5MW in 2017 to six,975MW in 2026, and is projected to succeed in 14,319MW by 2034. In the meantime, off-grid photo voltaic capability has already exceeded 13,000MW and is predicted to rise to 18,944MW by 2034.
Officers additional famous that the speedy development of off-grid and hybrid photo voltaic programs has inflated the variety of protected electrical energy customers from 11 million to 22 million, considerably rising the subsidy burden and creating distortions within the energy sector.
If the prevailing internet metering regime have been allowed to proceed unchanged, the cumulative monetary influence on the system throughout 2025–34 would have reached Rs4,360 billion, officers mentioned. Below the revised mechanism, this influence is now projected to say no to Rs2,134 billion over the identical interval.
