Net Metering in Pakistan: What Replaced It and What It Means for Your Bill

Net metering, as Pakistani buyers knew it, no longer exists for new applicants. On 9 February 2026 NEPRA notified the Prosumer Regulations, 2026 through SRO 251(I)/20262026)%2009-02-26.PDF), repealing the Alternative & Renewable Energy Distributed Generation and Net Metering Regulations, 2015 and replacing them with a net billing mechanism.

If you are researching a rooftop system today, this is the single fact that changes your arithmetic. Most of the guidance still circulating online — including buyback rates quoted in installer brochures — describes a framework that was repealed seven months ago.

What actually changed

Net metering and net billing sound like the same idea. They are not, and the difference is where your money goes.

Under net metering, the meter netted units against units. A unit you exported at noon cancelled a unit you imported at night. Because both sides were measured in the same currency — kilowatt-hours — an exported unit was effectively worth your full retail tariff.

Under net billing, the two sides are priced separately:

• Imports are billed at your applicable consumer tariff, with the usual slab structure, fuel adjustments, surcharges and taxes on top.
• Exports are purchased from you at the national average energy purchase price — the wholesale-style figure the system pays for generation, not the retail rate you pay to consume it.

That asymmetry is the whole reform. Reporting at notification put the new export rate at Rs 8.13 per unit, against Rs 25.32 under the old mechanism — a reduction of Rs 17.19, or roughly two-thirds. Profit by Pakistan Today reported the change on 10 February.

Two cautions on that number. It is an average purchase price subject to periodic review, not a rate fixed in the regulations, so it will move. And Arcnex has not independently audited the figure against NEPRA's own determination — we are reporting what the regulation established and what credible Pakistani outlets recorded at the time. Confirm the rate applying on the date you apply.

The agreement term also shortened, from seven years to five.

If you already have net metering, you keep it

This is the part worth reading carefully, because it is where real money sits.

Approvals granted, licences and concurrences issued, and agreements executed under the repealed regulations are not disturbed. Those consumers continue to be billed under the rate and mechanism in the repealed regulations until the term of their agreement expires. NEPRA put this beyond doubt in an amendment announced on 3 April 2026, given retroactive effect to 9 February.

But the protection has a condition attached, and it catches people: it is forfeited where there is a material modification of the distributed generation facility that changes its maximum electrical output.

In plain terms — if you hold a grandfathered agreement at the old rate and you add panels, you may convert your entire installation onto the new regime. The extra generation could cost you far more than it earns. Before adding a single module to an existing net-metered system, get your distribution company's written position on whether the change is material. Treat a verbal assurance from an installer as worth nothing.

What the regulations cover

The Prosumer Regulations apply to distributed generation up to 1 MW connected to a licensed distribution company's network, and they are technology-neutral in a way the old framework was not: solar, wind and biogas all sit inside the same regime.

The gatekeeping conditions that governed net metering applications largely persist:

• Connection type. Distribution companies normally require a three-phase connection. On single-phase supply, conversion is a prerequisite cost, not an afterthought.
• Sanctioned load. Your approved connection capacity effectively caps system size. For a typical household this binds long before the 1 MW ceiling.
• A clean account. Outstanding dues and metering irregularities stall an application before any technical review begins.

How this changes system sizing

The reform does not make rooftop solar uneconomic. It makes *one kind* of rooftop solar uneconomic — the oversized array built to export a large surplus at retail value.

The logic now runs strongly toward self-consumption. A unit you use at the moment it is generated still displaces a unit you would have bought at your full retail tariff, including every adjustment layered on top. A unit you export earns the average purchase price. The gap between those two numbers is now wide enough to dominate the design.

Practically:

• Size to your daytime load, not your annual consumption.
• Move flexible loads into daylight — pumping, washing, pre-cooling, batch production. This raises returns without adding a panel.
• A household empty all day and consuming in the evening gets much less from this regime than a business running 9am to 5pm on the same array.
• Where consumption is genuinely evening-weighted, the honest comparison is no longer a bigger array but solar plus storage — a different investment with different economics, which we set out in solar battery backup in Pakistan.

Anyone still presenting you with a payback calculation built on Rs 25.32 exports is working from a repealed framework. Ask which regulations their model assumes, and ask on what date the export rate was last checked. Our framework for pressure-testing an offer is in comparing solar quotations in Pakistan.

Why the change happened

Pakistan's rooftop boom ran on simple arithmetic: grid tariffs rose sharply while imported module prices collapsed. That pulled hundreds of thousands of consumers into self-generation faster than the distribution system planned for.

That success created its own pressure. Net-metered consumers are disproportionately high-value daytime customers, and as they left the grid's billing base the fixed costs of serving them stayed put — feeding the cost stack every remaining consumer pays, the mechanism we set out in Pakistan's circular debt explained.

The direction of travel is consistent with comparable markets worldwide: the retail-rate offset narrows over time and value shifts toward self-consumption and storage. Pakistan has now made that move in one step rather than several.

What to watch next

The export rate is the number to track, because it is an average purchase price that will be revised rather than a fixed figure. Watch for NEPRA determinations revising it, any further amendment to the Prosumer Regulations, and how distribution companies interpret "material modification" in practice — that interpretation will decide how many grandfathered consumers can safely expand.

Check the rules before you check the price

A quotation built on the wrong regulations is worse than no quotation. Arcnex tracks each determination as it lands, with the date and the source attached.

• Follow our continuing Pakistan energy coverage for tariffs, determinations and rooftop economics.
• Browse the policy and markets desk for the structures behind the numbers.
• Subscribe to The Energy Edit — free, independent reporting, start here.

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