Industry experts warn that shift from net metering to net billing for large solar plants could make major installations financially unfeasible
PANAJI
Goa's solar power ambitions will take a hit with the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission's (JERC) recent amendment notification which stipulates that the 'net metering' concept will be restricted to solar units under 500 KWp capacity, industry captains have warned the government.
According to the JERC's latest notification, this 'net metering' concept for billing by which the total energy drawn minus the solar energy fed back to the grid, is considered as final consumption and billed as per the existing tariff slabs, will be available only to those consumers who have installed solar units smaller than 500 KWp capacity.
For others with greater than 500 KWp capacity installations, the billing mode for them will be 'net billing' according to the JERC amendment notification.
Under the net-billing mode, the total energy drawn by the consumer will be billed as per the applicable tariff rate but the solar energy he feeds back to the grid will be refunded at the average per unit power purchase cost of the Electricity Department which is much lower than the tariff-based cost.
"This would make large solar power plants unviable and make it impossible for Goa to achieve the 450 GW of Renewable Energy capacity by 2030 set by the Centre," said the Infrastructure committee of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
GCCI's infrastructure panel led by its chairman Gerard D'Mello held discussions with Goa's Chief Electrical Engineer, Stephen Fernandes, in connection with this billing change. Apart from the GCCI team, Peter D'Lima, trustee of Goa Institute of Management (GIM) which has a major 750 KWp solar energy installation at its Sanquelim campus, also joined the discussion with Fernandes.
During the discussions, D'Lima told the CEE that GIM has plans to expand its solar energy unit but the new JERC notification has made the plan financially imprudent.
Fernandes meanwhile said the notification is sacrosanct and there was no option but to implement it as the JERC has issued it. He however told the industry captains that he was unaware of the reasoning that prompted the JERC to issue this latest billing notification for those consumers having solar energy installations and suggested that viability of existing thermal power plants and revenues of Discoms may have been a consideration.
Fernandes said another factor could have been that large solar plants are unable to feed power to the grid during the 6 pm to 3 am peak demand period which gives rise to wide variation in the department's loading pattern during the day.
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JERC returns GED's 2025-26 tariff petition
The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has returned the Goa Electricity Department's (GED) tariff petition for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal because it is based on the earlier slabs and consumer categories.
JERC has directed GED to resubmit the petition as per the new tariff categories and slabs issued by it. CEE Stephen Fernandes has said that the JERC has now been petitioned to consider the proposal as it would not be possible to accomplish the mammoth task of reworking the tariff petition based on the new categories and slabs.
