The WBERC (West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission) has made amendments to its cogeneration and electricity generation from renewable sources regulations 2013.
As per the above amendment, a consumer is eligible when he or she has installed or has agreed to install a solar rooftop system of at least 1kw or greater so that they can meet their own requirement as well as supply to DISCOM on a metering basis.
It was in September last year they made the draft for the amendments and asked their stakeholders for their reviews on the same. The existing solar generating systems will continue as it is and will be considered under the net-metering arrangement. The ministry of power had also recently changed the rules for net metering loads that come around 10kw.
So now we might be wondering what net metering and gross metering is!
To understand that, first we must understand the rooftop metering arrangement. In 2003 the government had come up with the Electricity Act where the net metering policy or a rooftop solar policy was made that dictates the conditions of installing a grid-connected rooftop solar (RTS) or a small solar power plant in the given state. These are policies that determine how consumers are compensated for the power they supply to grid and vary from state to state.
It isn’t that complicated to understand these.
In net metering, electricity generated by the rooftop solar system is consumed by the user themselves and any extra electricity generated is then passed on to the power grid. In case if the power generated is not sufficient then the rest is taken from the grid. They are charged only for the net energy consumed by them.
As for gross metering, the total energy produced is directly transferred to the grid and the consumer then imports the energy from the grid as per his usage and necessities. In the end, he is compensated for the energy exported by them to the grid as per the feed-in tariff of the state.
As per the WBERC if any household gives 90% energy more than its requirements/consumption during a billing period it will be carried forward to the next billing time period. Slab tariffs will be added for the energy supplied by the license owner when the power injected is more than consumption.
Image credit: indiamart.com
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