People deprived of net-metering benefits

The promotion of green energy is a top priority for governments worldwide, yet the problems faced by solar consumers in Pakistan continue to grow. Initially, the government launched a campaign to promote solar energy by encouraging net-metering connections.

Net-metering connections allow electricity consumers to generate their own power — typically through rooftop solar systems — and supply excess electricity back to the national grid.

When hundreds of thousands of consumers installed net-metering systems and the number of units generated by solar users and fed into the national grid began to rise, the government started introducing changes to the net-metering policy.

On December 16, 2025, the Power Planning and Monitoring Company (PPMC) — through letter No PPMC/CFRA/2025/108 — directed DISCOs that net-metering consumers producing electricity beyond their approved load should not be billed for these excess units.

In other words, consumers with a difference between their Distribution Generation Capacity (DGC) and Maximum Demand Indicator (MDI) were not to be billed for additional units.

The DGC refers to the approved capacity of electricity that a consumer is allowed to generate and inject into the distribution network through solar panels. The MDI is the highest amount of electricity demand a consumer draws from the grid at any point in time.

According to sources, after issuing the December 16 letter, the PPMC convened a meeting of DISCO representatives to clarify policy guidelines, emphasizing that only excess units were not to be billed.

However, instead of merely refraining from billing excess generation, DISCOs allegedly stopped billing exported units altogether. Exported units are the surplus electricity produced by the consumer through solar panels and supplied to the grid.

As a result, DISCOs effectively made millions of exported solar units disappear, and the electricity generated by millions of net-metering consumers was not included in their bills.

Instead of adjusting exported units, consumers were charged for all the electricity they consumed.

The failure to account for exported units led to heavy electricity bills for solar consumers during the winter season. The arrival of unusually high bills in cold weather sparked widespread outrage among solar users.

As the situation worsened, the PPMC once again issued a clarificatory letter to the DISCOs on January 22, stating that billing should be carried out for a consumer's approved generation, while no billing should be done for generation beyond the approved limit.

However, by then, DISCOs had already inflicted losses on solar consumers involving millions of units.

Sources said DISCOs misused the new net-metering policy to hide line losses. Units generated by net-metering consumers and supplied to the national grid were utilized within the system but were not reflected in billing, allowing DISCOs to conceal losses.