Amid strong criticism over new net-metering reforms, Energy Minister Awais Leghari on Wednesday said that no changes would be made to the solar policy for existing consumers "for now".
Speaking on Geo News programme Capital Talk on Wednesday, Leghari blamed “social media trend” for the growing opposition against the newly introduced reforms that effectively ended the net metering regime and replaced net metering with the net billing mechanism.
“My wife opposed this policy, saying you have increased my bill after switching to net billing from net metering,” the minister said on today’s show.
He said the prime minister has ordered that the net billing system should not apply to existing consumers for now and has told the Power Division to challenge the regulator’s decision.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took notice of the new Prosumer Regulations 2026 issued by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA).
According to a statement issued by the PM Office, the premier directed the Power Division to immediately file an appeal with the power regulator to protect the contracts of existing solar consumers.
The prime minister, chairing a high-level special meeting on Nepra’s new regulations, directed the Power Division to formulate a comprehensive action plan in this regard so that the burden of 466,000 consumers benefiting from solar would not be borne by more than 37.6 million consumers using electricity only from the national grid.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Federal Ministers Ahad Khan Cheema, Attaullah Tarar, Ali Pervez Malik, Sardar Owais Khan Leghari, Minister of State Bilal Azhar Kayani, Adviser on Privatisation Muhammad Ali and relevant senior officials.
The development came two days after Nepra effectively ended the net metering regime, introducing sweeping new rules that shift rooftop solar and other small generators to a “net billing” system.
It is fundamentally changing how electricity is priced and reshaping the economics of distributed generation. Under the Nepra (Prosumer) Regulations, 2026, notified on Monday, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority will now require power utilities to purchase surplus electricity from prosumers, including households, businesses and industries generating up to one megawatt at the national average energy purchase price, while selling electricity back to them at the applicable consumer tariff.
This ends the one-to-one offset model that previously allowed solar users to neutralise their electricity bills.
The shift also shortens the contract horizon, with the standard agreement term cut to five years from the earlier seven years, renewable by mutual consent. Existing prosumers will remain under their current contracts until expiry, but all future renewals and new connections will fall under the five-year net billing framework, significantly altering long-term investment returns.
If the value of electricity supplied by the prosumer is higher than the electricity taken from the utility, the extra amount will either be adjusted in the next bill or paid to the prosumer every three months.
The new regulations, which take effect immediately, repeal the Nepra Alternative & Renewable Energy Distributed Generation and Net Metering Regulations, 2015, and apply to solar, wind and biogas systems.
