Net Metering on

Renewable energy generators could get price cuts on EDL bills

The Minister of Energy and Water, Gebran Bassil, launched on December 22 an electricity scheme for consumers who use renewable energy production facilities, such as wind or solar power generating cells. The new application is called ‘net metering’.

Under net metering, users of renewable power generators sign a contract with the Electricité du Liban (EDL) upon which they receive price cuts on their electricity bills in accordance with the amount of energy they produce.
According to Pierre Khoury, the director of the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC), the new application allows the export of the electricity produced through renewable power generators to the grid in order to save the electricity output as “energy credit”.

A digital reader would be installed at sites that use renewable energy resources. The device measures the energy exported to the grid, and that imported from it (per KWH).

At the end of every two months, the net output is calculated by subtracting the exported energy from the imported energy. The electricity bill of the site using the application would be counted only for the difference between the two numbers.

“For example if, at the end of the two months, the digital reader counts 1000kwh imported from the grid and 800kwh exported to the grid, the owner of this unit would be charged for 200kwh only,” Khoury said.

If the amount of energy exported to the grid was more than that imported from it, the excess would be saved as energy credit. Khoury said that the energy credit could be passed on throughout a 12 month-period. At the end of each year, he said, the count is reset to zero. Khoury said that according to the contract, any energy credit remaining in the grid at the end of December of each year would be donated to the EDL.

Net metering could be applied to all small and medium renewable energy producers. According to Khoury, the application is ideal for sites which have seasonal operations, such as schools and hotels in mountain areas. “Schools, for instance, typically use a lot more electricity during the school season, thus they could make up for the difference during summer,” he said.

According to Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW), net metering is a low‐cost and easily administered method of promoting direct customer investment and involvement in renewable energy.

The General Director of the EDL, Kamal Hayek, said that the company is ready to accept subscription applications.
The EDL announced that subscribers to the net metering would be exempted from regular electricity subscription fees if their output of renewable energy was at least equal to 75 percent of their energy consumption.

The MoEW also said that the net metering application would be followed with the ‘Feed In’ method by which the EDL would purchase the excess energy produced by subscribers.