Energy Minister Awais Leghari. Photo: Online
ISLAMABAD:
Power Minister Awais Leghari admitted on Thursday that soaring electricity prices had pushed consumers towards installing solar panels, even as the government’s key coalition partner, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), equated recent changes in the net-metering policy with “broad daylight robbery and fraud”.
Despite acknowledging that rising tariffs had driven people away from the national grid, the government, in another highly controversial move, has imposed an additional Rs200 to Rs675 per consumer burden on residential users to raise funds to offset relief extended to industrial consumers.
Addressing the launch ceremony of a programme to replace conventional fans with energy-efficient models, the power minister conceded that expensive electricity had forced people to adopt solar-based solutions and that changes to the net-metering regulations were painful.
However, the minister’s remarks appeared to amount to little more than lip service, as the government simultaneously placed yet another unjustified burden on ordinary consumers. To provide Rs4.04 per unit relief to just 301,384 industrial consumers, the government has imposed an additional Rs132 billion burden on residential users.
Under the revised structure, the government has imposed a Rs200 monthly fixed charge on protected consumers using up to 100 units, Rs300 on protected consumers using up to 200 units, Rs275 on non-protected consumers using up to 100 units, Rs350 on 200 units, Rs400 on 300 units, Rs500 on 400 units, and Rs675 per month on consumers using more than 400 units.
Such a blatant abuse of authority has forced people to shift from the national grid to off-grid solutions such as solar panels. The government has also been charging residential consumers an additional Rs12 per unit under the head of cross-subsidy and Rs3.23 per unit as debt-servicing cost, liabilities stemming directly from inefficiencies within the power sector.
Compared to an energy price of around Rs11 per unit, consumers are being charged up to Rs60 per unit, a disparity widely seen as the primary reason behind the growing exodus from the national grid.
The power minister acknowledged that the net-metering “reforms” could cost the government political capital but vowed that the changes would continue.
However, the PPP, whose support is crucial for the government to retain its majority in the National Assembly, mounted a sharp attack on the abrupt changes to the solar net-metering policy.
“It was ‘broad daylight robbery and fraud’,” said PPP lawmaker Sharmila Faruqui while speaking on a call-attention notice submitted by the party in the National Assembly.
PPP MNAs Syed Naveed Qamar, Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, Dr Nafisa Shah, Dr Sharmila Faruqui and Mirza Ikhtiar Baig invited the attention of the minister for the Power Division to a matter of urgent public importance regarding the implications of the revised solar policy.
Responding to the criticism, Leghari told the House that out of Pakistan’s total installed solar capacity of 20,000 to 22,000 megawatts, only around 6,000 megawatts were linked to net-metering. As a result, he said, just 600,000 to 700,000 consumers – around 8 to 10 per cent of total solar users – would be impacted.
“There will be no impact on lower-income consumers,” he assured the House.
However, just a day earlier, the power minister had claimed that only 1 per cent of total consumers would be affected by the change in the net-metering policy. Under the new regulations, the government would purchase electricity from solar panels at Rs8.13 per unit, while selling electricity at rates of up to Rs60 per unit.
Leghari rejected claims that the new regulations were anti-solar, arguing that reducing the profit margin of net-metered consumers from 50 per cent to 37 per cent did not constitute an anti-people measure.
Responding to the minister’s remarks, Faruqui objected to the government “shifting the blame to net-metering users for burdening the national grid”.
“These consumers are the ones who followed the government’s clean energy policy,” she said, adding that the authorities had taken a “U-turn on their policies”.
“Now they are justifying it by blaming people who were at the forefront of your policy,” she added.
Faruqui maintained that the Power Division was effectively passing on costs arising from “line losses, transmission losses, inefficiency, inconsistency, corruption and capacity payments” to ordinary citizens, once again terming the move “broad daylight robbery”.
In his response, the minister said the call-attention notice was no longer relevant “since the prime minister has already said that the net-billing should be halted and the consumers will stay on net-metering for now. But this change is only meant for the existing solar panel owners, that too until the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority decides on a yet-to-be-filed review petition.”
Leghari, along with Climate Change Minister Dr Musadaq Malik, also launched the Prime Minister’s Fan Replacement Programme, which aims to replace 88 million conventional fans with energy-efficient models over a 10-year period.
Under the scheme, existing fans can be replaced at a cost of Rs12,000, with the amount, including interest on loans, to be recovered through electricity bills. The programme offers on-bill financing, allowing consumers to pay in instalments over six to 18 months, for new fans that consume 70 per cent less energy.
The power minister said the country’s cooling load requirement stood at 6,000 to 8,000 megawatts, and that the introduction of energy-efficient fans could significantly reduce demand during peak hours.
He further noted that Pakistan currently lacked stable electricity demand due to the rising use of solar energy and low industrial activity, with nationwide demand recorded at just 8,000 megawatts on Thursday.
However, despite acknowledging that winter demand hovered around 8,000 megawatts, Power Division officials on Wednesday made a highly questionable claim before television anchorpersons that the government had added 8,000 megawatts of capacity to the national grid to meet electricity demand during periods of low solar production.
