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 proposals that have drawn criticism from prosumers.
The regulations will apply from 6 November 2025 to 31 March 2030. Billing systems prescribed by the regulations will apply from 1 January 2026. Consumers/prosumers who have obtained ‘feasibility’ by 5 November 2025 will be subject to the new regulations.
Under the new regulations, the 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 common service connections of multi-storey residential units.
The final regulations contain modified terms regarding network support fees, a major point of contention raised by prosumers in the many hearings organized by the Commission on its draft proposals.
Under the new regulations, grid support charges will be collected from prosumers under the NMS for the energy consumed by the prosumer from the grid during non-solar hours, up to the amount of energy adjusted against the energy stored by the prosumer.
“For example, if 400 units are drawn from the grid during non-solar hours and the number of units in the forward state after normalization is 300 units, grid support charges will be collected for only 300 units,” the Commission said.
Consumers with renewable energy (RE) production systems with a capacity of up to and including 10 kW are exempt from paying network support fees. Above this limit, network support charges would be charged monthly at 50 paise per unit for the first 300 units and ₹ 1 per unit for the balance units.
All existing and new agricultural consumers who have renewable energy systems are exempt from paying grid support charges.
Prosumers strongly opposed the proposal, which included proposals to limit the Net Metering System (NMS) to 3 kW, impose a “Grid Support Charge” of ₹1 for each unit of renewable energy exported to the grid, and certain conditions regarding battery storage.
The regulations also include provisions for emerging technologies in the renewable energy sector such as Vehicle to Grid (V2G), Virtual Net Metering (VNM) and Virtual Power Plants (VPP).
Published – 06 Nov 2025 22:19 IST
