On directives of Federal Minister for Power Awais Leghari, the Power Division has formally asked the National Electric and Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to abolish the application fee and remove the license requirement for solar consumers of 25 kilowatts and below.
The Power Division had previously alerted Nepra about the adverse effects of this decision and requested that it be aligned with the old regulations, the Power Division said in a statement on Sunday.
The development comes a day after the Nepra clarified that solar consumers who are not connected to the national grid do not require any licence from the regulator, and no such proposal was currently under consideration.
Under the previous 2015 regulations, distributed generation facilities of 25 kilowatts or below did not require a license from Nepra. Applications were processed directly by Distribution Companies (Discos) without any fee, serving as a major fiscal incentive for residential users, it added.
However, the new Prosumer Regulations centralise approval authority with Nepra and impose application fees even on these small facilities.
The Power Division noted that the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) had flagged the regulatory shift and requested Nepra to maintain consistency with the earlier approvals regime for systems of 25KW or below.
Additionally, during public hearings, the Pakistan Solar Association, Primage (Pvt) Ltd, the Pakistan Alternative Energy Association, and Siddiq Renewable Energy (Pvt) Ltd formally objected to the changes, arguing that removing approval authority from Discos creates unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles.
Following the minister’s directive, the Power Division has now formally requested Nepra to reinstate the earlier practice for systems of 25KW and below, warning that the current approach risks slowing the national drive toward alternative energy adoption.
A day earlier, the Nepra officials explained that its regulations cannot be applied to off-grid solar consumers, adding that these rules only cover users falling under net metering and net billing categories, which are limited to those connected to the national grid. They added that under the new Nepra regulations, net billing has been introduced solely for new consumers, and all solar users connected to the national grid with any level of load will now be required to obtain a licence from the authority.