ISLAMABAD: Stakeholders and policy experts, while witnessing Pakistan’s record-breaking rooftop solar movement facing a critical turning point, warned that the proposed Prosumer Regulations 2025 risk dismantling a decade of citizen-led energy progress.

At a national consultative dialogue convened by the Pakistan Renewable Energy Coalition (PREC) and the Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy (ACJCE) on “Redefining the prosumer-grid relationship: analysis of draft Prosumer Regulations 2025”, the speakers cautioned that a shift from net metering to net billing could destabilise the power sector by pushing consumers toward a total grid defection.

It may be noted that under the idea of net metering to net billing system, solar users will sell excess electricity to the grid at a lower, fixed rate of around Rs11, while purchasing power at the higher tariff which is over Rs50.

Dr Nafisa Shah, Member National Assembly, stated, “Consumers are bearing the brunt of policy failures while simply trying to secure their basic right to electricity. The next phase of this revolution will be a battery rush, and we must safeguard those who rely on solar.”

Senator Dr Zarqa Suharwardy Taimur said the regulation contradicted the rights of solar consumers. “It risks disincentivising renewable energy adoption in a climate-affected nation,” she added.

The experts said that over the past decade, citizens had independently imported over 51.5 GW of solar capacity. This organic growth, fuelled by soaring electricity prices and grid unreliability, turned ordinary consumers into prosumers rather active contributors who reduce peak demand and advance the clean energy transition without requiring public financing.

The new draft regulations, however, propose replacing the 2015 net metering framework with a net billing system that compensates exported solar electricity at significantly lower rates, the experts said, adding the move penalised the very citizens who stepped into solve the country’s energy shortfalls.

Director General Licensing at Nepra Imtiaz Baloch clarified, “This is still a proposal under consultation, not a policy change.” He pointed towards legacy system constraints, cautioning that they should be addressed too with a forward-looking approach.

Zeeshan Ashfaq, CEO of Renewables First, said the propensity of control was the root cause of power sector failures as limiting technological proliferation through administrative measures was impossible. “The choice before us is simple: penalise the consumer or facilitate him,” he said.

Dr Khalid Waleed, energy economy expert, SDPI, noted that the 2015 policy was celebrated globally, yet the 2025 draft resorted to short-term solutions rather than a long-term integration strategy.

He proposed that instead of abrupt shutdowns, young coal plants like Sahiwal should be repurposed into ancillary assets to provide grid stabilisation services or converted into Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) using sodium-ion technology.

Rabia Babar said grid electricity sales had declined for three consecutive years despite a rising number of consumers, signalling that citizens were already moving away from grid dependence.

Shah Jahan Mirza, ex-managing director PPIB, acknowledged that while the government may not intend to curb solar, any transition from the 2015 rules should have been gradual and phased.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2026