IPS provides insights on NEPRA draft regulations on Microgrids, 2021

It is estimated that around 60 million population of Pakistan is settled in off-grid and non-compliant areas of the distribution grid, which majorly constitute different regions of northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Due to excessive costs incurred to extend the transmission system to these far-flung areas, microgrids can be a sustainable solution for electrification through conventional and renewable energy.

This was the context over which a meeting on NEPRA’s draft regulations on Microgrids, 2021 was conducted on January 21, 2022. The online meeting was chaired by Chairman NEPRA Tauseef Farooqui and participated by over 50 experts from various national and international organizations, whereas the insights over the topic were presented by Mirza Hamid Hasan, chairman, IPS Energy, Water and Climate Change program.

Hasan endorsed NEPRA’s initiative in his presentation, terming its draft regulations to be beneficial for the low-income group of the rural society.

Commenting on the tariff settlement, Hasan stressed that the draft regulations mandated to have the tariff should be bilaterally negotiated with the customers and microgrid operators, and for this, competitive tariff calculation should be introduced.

Hasan also emphasized that in order to make the initiative sustainable, collective efforts should be made where the distribution companies would be assisting on applicability of the technical codes to minimize the risk of issues in power source connectivity and dispatch.

The proposed interventions were endorsed by Chairman NEPRA as well as other participants of the meeting.