LESA to integrate net meters to billing software

LUCKNOW: Consumers who have installed solar power plants at their premises and want to sell the surplus generation to LESA would have it easy now. Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration (LESA) has ordered HCL, the billing agency, to integrate net meters with the billing system. A net meter connects the solar power plant to the grid.
In Lucknow, at present, there are only 15 consumers who have set up solar power plants at their rooftops. But the billing software has not been tweaked to integrate net meters. A net meter should show both the import (supply from grid to consumer) and export (supply from consumer to grid) of power which is not happening at present since billing software has been designed to show only import.

Once integrated with the billing software, net meters would show both import and export of supply. “We have given a week’s time to HCL for integration. Till then, billing for net meters would be done manually. A nodal officer has also been appointed for net metering,” said chief engineer, LESA, Ashutosh Kumar.

Due to shortage of net meters, at least five applications to set up solar power plant are pending at the LESA office. The nodal officer has been directed to clear the pending applications.

To sell the surplus generation to LESA, consumer has to enter into an agreement with the energy department on first-come-first-serve basis. Solar power generation worth only 15% of the capacity of the transformer will be allowed in a locality to prevent overloading of transformer.

The excess generation that a consumer is left with after his own consumption can be sold to LESA at Rs 2 per unit. Setting up a solar power plant costs about Rs 1 lakh per kilowatt.

Source: Times of India