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LAHORE:
Promoting green energy is a top priority for governments around the world, but the problems facing solar consumers in Pakistan continue to worsen. 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 electricity – usually via rooftop solar systems – and send 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 increase, the government began to introduce 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 charged for such excess units.
In other words, consumers with a difference between their Distribution Generating Capacity (DGC) and their Maximum Demand Indicator (MDI) should not be charged for additional units.
DGC refers to the approved capacity of electricity that a consumer is allowed to produce and inject into the distribution network via solar panels. The MDI is the highest electricity demand a consumer draws from the grid at any given time.
According to sources, after issuing the December 16 letter, the PPMC convened a meeting of DISCO representatives to clarify the policy guidelines, emphasizing that only surplus units should not be charged.
However, instead of simply refraining from charging for excess production, DISCOs have reportedly stopped charging for exported units altogether. Exported units are the surplus electricity produced by the consumer using solar panels and supplied to the grid.
As a result, DISCOs effectively wiped out millions of exported solar units, and the electricity produced by millions of net metering consumers was not included in their bills.
Instead of adjusting exported units, consumers were billed for all the electricity they consumed.
The inability to account for exported units resulted in heavy electricity bills for solar consumers during the winter season. The arrival of unusually high bills during cold weather has sparked widespread outrage among solar power users.
As the situation worsened, the PPMC again sent a clarifying letter to the DISCOs on January 22, clarifying that billing should be done for generation approved by the consumer, while no billing should be made for generation beyond the approved limit.
However, by that time, DISCOs had already inflicted losses of several million units on solar consumers.
Sources said DISCOs had been 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, allowing DISCOs to hide losses.
