The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has ruled in favour of Sou Sushila D. Ghodawat Charitable Trust (SSDGCT) in its petition against the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) over the denial of net metering benefits for its rooftop solar project.

MERC directed MSEDCL and the Trust to jointly recalculate the electricity charges for the disputed months and complete this exercise within 30 days. Once the revised figures are agreed, MSEDCL must adjust the excess amount in the Trust’s next bill and add interest at the bank rate on the reconciled sum.

Background

SSDGCT, which runs an educational campus at Atigre in Kolhapur district, is a high-tension consumer of MSEDCL with a contract demand of 1.05 MVA under tariff category HT-VIII B. It has a 560 kW rooftop solar project, commissioned in March 2020, approved under the net metering framework. In addition to power from MSEDCL, it also sources electricity through short-term open access from a 1.25 MW wind turbine in Dhule.

According to the petition, solar generation had been settled on a net metering basis from July 2020 to December 2023. After the Commission amended the Distribution Open Access Regulations in November 2023 to allow consumers with rooftop renewable systems to avail open access and net metering simultaneously, the Trust expected the same treatment to continue.

Instead, for the billing months of January, February, March, August, September, and October 2024, when it was drawing wind power under open access, MSEDCL abruptly shifted to gross metering for the rooftop solar component, sharply increasing the bill. The Trust claimed that this led to an excess recovery of ₹6.09 million (~$67,572) and sought a refund with interest.

The Trust argued that its rooftop project had been specifically approved under net metering, and there is nothing in the regulations that permits the utility to unilaterally convert such a system to gross metering merely because the consumer is also availing open access. It pointed out that the 2023 amendment deleted the earlier requirement of gross metering during open access and introduced a clear provision that net drawal recorded on the net meter, after rooftop banking, should be used for settlement.

The Trust stressed that MSEDCL itself had issued the short-term open access approvals for the contested period and had never informed the Trust that, under the new Green Energy Open Access regime, applications should go through the state load despatch centre.

Also, MSEDCL issued its own detailed commercial circular on implementing the amended framework only in September 2024, 10 months after the regulations were notified, leaving consumers with no formal guidance.

MSEDCL claimed that after the Green Energy Open Access Rules, 2022, and the Second Amendment to the Distribution Open Access Regulations in 2023, consumers like SSDGCT were required to apply for open access through the centralized system operated by the nodal agency and, in Maharashtra’s case, via the state load despatch centre for short-term transactions.

Since SSDGCT had continued to apply directly to MSEDCL, the company argued that the short-term open access permissions granted were not in strict compliance with the new framework and should be treated as invalid. If the underlying open access was flawed, it said, the consumer could not insist on the benefit of simultaneous net metering for those months.

Commission’s Analysis

The Commission noted that earlier versions of the open access regulations had indeed required rooftop solar generation to be settled on a gross basis whenever a consumer was also availing open access. That position changed in November 2023, when the Second Amendment removed the gross metering restriction and brought in Regulation 3.4, which expressly allows consumers with rooftop renewable systems to use open access and net metering together.

Under the amended program, the net drawal recorded on the net meter, after rooftop banking credits, is to be used for energy settlement. Since all the disputed months fall in 2024, the Commission held that the Trust was operating squarely under this new, more favourable regime.

The Commission noted that MSEDCL had delayed implementing the amended regulations and issued its implementation circular only in September 2024. Until then, consumers had no formal instruction on the new green open access process. Despite now arguing that applications should have gone to the load despatch centre, MSEDCL itself granted SSDGCT short-term open access approvals for January, February, March, August, September, and October 2024.

Having done so, the utility could not later declare its own approvals invalid and use that as a ground to deny the Trust the economic benefit of net metering. In the Commission’s view, SSDGCT should not be penalized for relying on permissions issued by the very entity now claiming they were flawed.

The Commission held that SSDGCT is entitled to net metering benefits alongside open access for the disputed period in 2024. It directed MSEDCL and the Trust to reconcile the claim amount within 30 days and for MSEDCL to carry out the necessary credit adjustment, with interest at the bank rate, in the immediate next billing cycle.

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