Mahavitaran to buy power from consumers

To reduce wastage of solar energy and incentivise people to go green, Mahavitaran Ltd has introduced ´net metering´, a provision allowing house owners and office complexes to sell unused power generated by their photovoltaic units to the discom. Mahavitaran consumers can opt to sell excess power units generated during the day – when photovoltaic power generation takes place – to the state grid and draw power, as per requirement, from the same grid at night. The difference between the day and night transaction will then be billed by the distributor. The application form to sign up for the scheme is posted on the discom´s website. Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has decided on a purchase tariff of Rs 6 per unit. ´While this is a welcome step, net metering is beneficial mainly to commercial complexes as their tariffs are substantially higher than residential ones. For the individual house owner, due to lower buy-back tariff, payoff will be longer,´ said Kameswara Rao, a senior consultant with PwC India.
In addition to reducing energy wastage, net metering will also bring down the cost of installing rooftop solar power units, as it removes the need for expensive batteries that store the generated power.