The Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission on Thursday notified the KSERC (Renewable Energy and Related Matters) Regulations, 2025, by making important changes and modifications to the draft proposals that had drawn criticism from prosumers.
The regulations will be applicable from November 6, 2025, to March 31, 2030. The billing systems prescribed by the regulations will be applicable from January 1, 2026. Consumers/prosumers who have obtained ‘feasibility’ till November 5, 2025, will be covered by the new regulations.
As per the new regulations, net metering system (NMS) will be applicable up to 20 kilowatts (kW) for domestic consumers, up to 500 kW for industrial consumers and up to 3,000 kW for agricultural consumers.
NMS is permissible up to 500 kW for the common service connections of multi-storied domestic apartments.
The final regulations carry modified conditions with respect to grid support charges, a major point of dispute raised by prosumers at multiple hearings organised by the Commission on its draft proposals.
As per the new regulations, grid support charges will be collected from prosumers under NMS on the energy consumed by the prosumer from the grid during non-solar hours, up to the quantum of energy adjusted against the banked energy of the prosumer.
“For example, if 400 units are drawn from the grid during non-solar hours and the banked units available after normalisation is 300 units, grid support charges will be collected for 300 units only,” the Commission said.
Prosumers with renewable energy (RE) generating systems with capacity up to and including 10 kW are exempted from payment of grid support charges. Above this limit, grid support charges would be levied monthly, at the rate of 50 paise per unit for the first 300 units and ₹1 per unit for the balance units.
All existing and new agricultural consumers having RE generating systems are exempted from the payment of grid support charges.
Prosumers had strongly opposed the draft which contained proposals for restricting the Net Metering System (NMS) to 3 kW, imposing a ‘grid support charge’ of ₹1 for every unit of renewable energy exported to the grid and certain conditions related to battery storage.
The regulations also incorporate provisions for emerging technologies in the RE sector such as Vehicle to Grid (V2G), Virtual Net Metering (VNM) and Virtual Power plants (VPP).
Published – November 06, 2025 10:19 pm IST
