Solar Rooftop sector will now live to see another day

Much needed amendments have been issued today by the Ministry of Power amending some very draconian restrictions on net-metering and gross metering affecting all “Prosumers” (Electricity consumers who also generate power) in the country. These restrictions had then stirred a hornet’s nest among the solar rooftop community. Following protests the MoP put out a discussion paper making some changes. After getting the inputs from all stakeholders the Electricity consumer Regulation 2020 have been amended today.

This puts behind us a sordid chapter of bungled policy and regulation that virtually choked the solar rooftop space briefly. Major changes which these amendments bring are outlined here:

1) The terms “gross-metering”/”net-metering”/”net-billing”/”net feed-in” are now precisely defined. These were not defined in the Regulations earlier.

2) The earlier version restricted the benefits of net-metering to solar rooftops below 10 KW and forced all solar rooftop installations above 10 KW into the gross metering mode. This took away the economic driver for many prosumers to go solar viz., saving of electricity bills. The amendment now does the following:

a. It recognizes the primacy of the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) at the States to decide policy on net/gross metering.

b. Only if the solar rooftop policy of the state does NOT specifically address capacity limits, then prosumers can opt for net-metering for solar installations upto 500Kw. Installation above 500Kw need to go into gross metering. This will also be at the discretion of the SERC.

3) The amendment now allows SERCs to introduce time of day tariffs to net-billing/net-feeding customers to incentivize addition of battery storage capacity for peak hour generation.

4) To allow net-metered customers to discharge RPO obligation, the rules now allow an extra solar meter to be installed to track generation of the solar system.

5) It asks SERCs to notify feed-in-tariffs for gross metering customers.

This should get the stalled solar rooftop segment back on track. Commercial and Industrial Consumer will get back their net-metering benefits under the state policies. In most state policies as things stand today, net-metering is available for customers upto 1 MW subject to sanctioned loads. We can expect this limit to migrate to 500KW as States revise policies and try to align themselves with these central regulations.

This is good win for the rooftop ecosystem which had been dealt a body-blow by the previous amendment. It gets a fresh breath of life and things can now get back on an even keel.

Amended Electricity consumer Rules: https://bit.ly/2U6CqHD

Earlier version of the Consumer rules: https://bit.ly/3qyxeIA