Embracing solar energy provides many residential owners with a high number of benefits. One of these benefits includes net metering, also known as net energy metering (NEM), which allows people to credit any excess amount of renewable energy generated from solar panels and offer it back to the grid. When any house generates a high amount of extra energy sold to the grid, they adjust this money within your utility bills giving you full economic value.
Solar energy’s job is to generate electricity during the day when the sun is out; however, during the middle of the day, people use a very limited amount of energy, even more than your house needs. A net metered system connected to the solar panels redirects the energy to the grid spinning your electric meter backward. The credited energy is added to your utility, giving you a real retail advantage towards your electricity account. During the evening, solar energy isn’t produced; eventually, residential owners take electricity from the grid, which can impact your electric meter. Both the credited amount of electricity and the amount you use from the grid are balanced in your bill; therefore, this process is called net metering.
Usually, in Pakistan, people come across high utility bills, especially during inflation; however, with net metering, your energy is credited, which can be carried forward from month to month, depending on your utility bills and monthly usage. Depending on the owners, this credit energy can be stored and used in the summers or winters.
Advantages of Net Metering
A net metering system has its advantages compared to other systems like off-grid or hybrid.
- Saving On Utility Bills
One of the best advantages for residential owners is having a solar net metering system which can help them save millions of rupees on utility bills. As described earlier that net metering was designed to make adjustments to your bills or eliminate your energy usage from the grid; however, there are fixed taxes that cannot be removed from your accounts.
- Short-Term Paybacks
Most residential owners would have a short-term payback duration compared to others since net metering offers credit energy. Owners with solar will save more costs instead of paying more, therefore recovering their investment much faster. Having net metering isn’t the only thing that will affect your solar payback. Items like inverters, wires, solar panels, installation, and other products also play a vital role in your payback.
- Lowers Pressure On The Grid
Each day the grid faces a heavy load & the best way to reduce such stress is through solar panels by generating their energy and distributing that energy to the grid. Since residential owners are not using the grid’s energy less, people are consuming the grid’s energy which means less load shedding. With net metering, the extra amount of energy being transferred to the grid can help the non-solar users meet their need for electricity, which means a high amount of pressure is reduced from the grid.
