Kenyans will sell extra electricity under new metering rules

Households and businesses that generate renewable energy for their own use have received a major boost after the state approved net metering rules that will allow them to send excess energy to the grid and offset their bills. Thanks to the regulations, prosumers – customers who produce energy on their own but also buy it online – will be connected to the national electricity grid using a meter that will record the amount of energy they have bought and sold. The power of Kenya.

This is a huge benefit for those who have renewable energy installations, such as photovoltaic systems, but lack sufficient batteries to store the excess energy produced during the day. Essentially, they will now use the grid to store excess energy.

However, according to the draft regulations on net metering published in 2022, they will not pay for the energy supplied to the network. This means that the surplus energy they sell to the grid The power of Kenya will be deducted from future bills for purchased energy. This provision was introduced in the regulations to protect the power company from spending billions of shillings to charge renewable energy fed into the grid, given that thousands of businesses and households are switching to self-generating energy.

“I approved the regulations before leaving Paris for the Global Clean Energy Summit of Heads of State this month,” said the Cabinet Secretary for Energy Davis Chichira on Monday. “The regulations will be announced on Friday.

“As part of the system, customers will feed electricity into the grid using the existing one The power of Kenya lines powering their homes or businesses. This will be facilitated by an inverter connected to the grid.

“Consumers will be obliged to bear the network connection costs related to their installation by the concessionaire,” we read in the draft regulations. The energy produced by consumers will be sold The power of Kenya at the same rates it uses to bill consumers.

“The licensee shall provide electricity services to prosumers at non-discriminatory rates which, in terms of the rate structure, retail rate components and any monthly charges, are identical to the rates approved by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority for the applicable tariff control period,” the draft states . Manufacturers have particularly lobbied the government to approve net metering regulations after years of delays, depriving them of millions of shillings in energy savings.