Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has, for the third time, ordered an immediate halt to the official campaign against the net metering policy, even before any formal summary proposing changes to the purchase price reached his office.
“We have received instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office to stop the campaign against net metering,” a senior official in the Power Division told Dawn.com.
He added that the Power Division had planned to develop a public narrative through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting before presenting a summary to the Cabinet, but we were told to back off for the third time.
The official noted that while such campaigns have slowed the spread of solar systems through net metering, the unregulated expansion of hybrid solar systems has increased rapidly. These systems do not benefit the national grid and, by reducing daytime electricity demand, are worsening the issue of excess generation capacity.
Earlier, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet had approved a proposal to revise the purchase price for net metering, but the federal cabinet rejected it following strong criticism from civil society and net metering consumers.
On July 10, Federal Minister for Energy Awais Leghari announced that a revised plan would be submitted to the Cabinet after consultation with stakeholders. Under the new plan, the payback period for investment in net metering would be extended from the current 1.5 years to 2–3 years.
He warned that failure to take corrective measures would further aggravate the problem of excess electricity in the national grid due to the unchecked spread of solar systems. He added that limiting the expansion of net metering and the sale of surplus electricity could help stabilize the grid.
The Power Division initially recommended no change in tariffs for existing net metering users but proposed lower rates and fixed charges based on sanctioned load for new users.
It also proposed that NEPRA rationalize the current purchase price and settlement mechanisms, as the regulator had previously increased the net metering tariff from Rs. 9–10 per unit to Rs. 19, and later to Rs. 27 per unit.
According to official estimates, there are approximately 325,000 net metering connections across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the country, with a total installed capacity of about 6,500 megawatts.
