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LAHORE:
Promoting green energy is a top priority for governments worldwide, but the problems facing solar energy 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 feed excess electricity back into the national grid.
As hundreds of thousands of consumers installed net metering systems and the number of units generated by solar energy users and fed into the national grid began to increase, the government began introducing changes to 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 who generate electricity beyond their authorized load should not be billed for these excess units.
In other words, consumers with a difference between their Distribution Generating Capacity (DGC) and Maximum Demand Indicator (MDI) were not to be billed for additional units.
DGC refers to the approved capacity of electricity that a consumer is allowed to generate and inject into the distribution grid through solar panels. MDI is the largest amount of electricity demand a consumer draws from the grid at any one time.
According to sources, after issuing the letter on December 16, PPMC called a meeting with DISCO representatives to clarify policy guidelines, stressing that only excess units should not be billed.
But instead of simply refraining from invoicing excess generation, DISCOs reportedly stopped invoicing exported units altogether. Exported units are the excess electricity produced by the consumer through solar panels and delivered to the grid.
As a result, DISCOs effectively made millions of exported solar units disappear and the electricity generated by millions of net-metered consumers was not included in their bills.
Instead of adjusting exported units, consumers were charged for all the electricity they used.
The lack of accounting for exported units led to high electricity bills for solar energy consumers during the winter season. The arrival of unusually high cold-weather bills sparked widespread outrage among solar users.
As the situation worsened, the PPMC once again issued a clarification letter to the DISCOs on January 22, stating that billing should be done for a consumer’s approved generation, while no billing should be done for generation beyond the approved limit.
But by then, DISCOs had already inflicted losses on solar consumers involving millions of units.
Sources said DISCOs were misusing the new net metering policy to hide line losses. Units generated by net metering consumers and supplied to the national grid were used in the system but were not reflected in billing, enabling DISCOs to hide losses.
