Would K-Electric please wake up and provide reverse metering option to all its solar power generating customers?
KARACHI: Pakistan continues its mindless pursuit of coal and other fossil fuels. Common sense and environmental concerns do not appear on the visible spectrum of possibilities. While a few dozen buildings in Islamabad and Lahore have been able to avail this facility (courtesy IESCO and LESCO), the rest of the country has been kept in complete isolation.
Net metering enables those who generate their own solar power to return the excess (unused) power to the grid and also be compensated for it. This means that the electrical meter measures what is received as well as what is returned to the grid. The customer is billed for the net difference between the two. Thus both parties, the solar power generator as well as the distribution company, benefit from the scheme.
NEPRA notification SRO 892 (1) 2015 stipulates the procedure for power supply companies to provide the net metering facility to those who install their own solar systems. While K-Electric should have promoted and welcomed this great opportunity (considering the acute shortage of electricity), it has inexplicably opted to look the other way. Would K-Electric please wake up and provide reverse metering option to all its solar power generating customers?
Naeem Sadiq
Published in The Express Tribune, April 27th, 2017.
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