Is solar still worth it in Pakistan after the 2026 policy?

What changed on 9 February 2026

NEPRA notified the Prosumer Regulations 2026 via SRO 251(I)/2026. The notification took immediate effect and replaced the Net Metering Regulations 2015. Two big shifts came with it.

The first is the move from net metering to net billing. Under the old rules, the meter ran backwards when a solar system exported electricity. Every exported unit cancelled out one imported unit at the same retail price. Under the new rules, two different prices apply. The distribution company buys exported electricity at the National Average Energy Purchase Price (around PKR 11 per unit at the time of writing). The same company sells you electricity at the full retail tariff, which after fuel adjustments, taxes, and surcharges lands somewhere between PKR 48 and PKR 65 per unit for most domestic consumers.

The second is a tighter set of system rules. Contract length came down from seven years to five. System capacity is capped at the consumer's sanctioned load. Interconnection costs (meters, grid upgrades) shift entirely to the prosumer. A non-refundable concurrence fee of PKR 1,000 per kilowatt was added.

None of this is good news for someone who hoped to export half their generation back to the grid. But the headlines that called this "the death of solar in Pakistan" did not look closely enough at the numbers.

The buyback rate drop in plain rupees

Old rate, paid to existing prosumers: roughly PKR 25 to PKR 27 per exported unit.

New rate, for anyone applying after 8 February 2026: roughly PKR 11 per exported unit.

The drop is real. A household that used to send 200 units per month to the grid was earning PKR 5,000 in credit. The same household under the new system earns PKR 2,200. A loss of PKR 2,800 per month, or PKR 33,600 per year.

The catch is that this loss only applies to electricity that gets exported. The first chunk of solar generation, the part that gets used inside the house in real time, is worth its full retail value, not the buyback rate. A unit of solar consumed at 1 pm by your AC is a unit you did not buy from LESCO at PKR 55. That is the same value it had before the policy changed. Nothing about that has shifted.

The math that broke is the export-everything math. The math that still works is the self-consumption math.

Payback periods: then and now

Before February 2026, a well-sized 10 kW grid-tied system in Lahore paid for itself in roughly three to five years. The numbers were extraordinary because the retail tariff was high and the export tariff matched it. Solar was the cheapest hedge available against rising LESCO bills.

After the policy change, the picture splits into three:

System type	Pre-Feb 2026 payback	Post-Feb 2026 payback
Grid-tied (heavy export)	3 – 5 years	7 – 12 years
Grid-tied (high daytime self-use, low export)	3 – 5 years	4 – 6 years
Hybrid with battery (self-consumption)	4 – 6 years	4 – 6 years

Notice the third row. Hybrid systems that store the daytime surplus in a battery and use it during the evening hardly noticed the policy change. The whole point of a hybrid system is to keep solar electricity inside the house. The export rate barely affects them because they barely export.

The second row is also interesting. A small office or shop that runs from 9 am to 7 pm consumes most of its electricity during peak sun hours. A grid-tied system without a battery still pays back in four to six years for those customers. They never had a lot of surplus to export anyway.

The first row, traditional residential grid-tied where the family is at work all day and the AC runs all night, is the one that got hit. Those systems generated a lot during the day, exported most of it, then imported a lot at night. Under net billing, the import-export spread is brutal.

The math that still works

LESCO tariffs are not standing still. The 2026 schedule sets unprotected residential rates between PKR 27 per unit at the low slab and PKR 48+ per unit at the higher slabs, before fuel price adjustment, taxes, and surcharges. Real bills land 30 to 50 percent higher than these base rates once everything is added. Time-of-use peak hours for 5 kW+ loads sit at PKR 24.33 per unit base, and protected versus unprotected status can swing rates significantly.

The trajectory matters more than the snapshot. Pakistan's electricity tariffs have risen, by IMF projection and by lived experience, faster than general inflation for the past six years. There is no scenario on the table where they fall in real terms. Solar locks in a fixed generation cost for 25 years. Every rupee LESCO raises its tariff over those 25 years is a rupee the solar system saves.

A worked example for a 10 marla home in Lahore. Current bill: PKR 35,000 per month average across the year (PKR 50,000 in summer, PKR 18,000 in winter). Annual electricity cost: PKR 420,000.

Year	LESCO bill without solar (PKR)	LESCO bill with hybrid solar (PKR)	Annual saving (PKR)
1	420,000	110,000	310,000
3	495,000	130,000	365,000
5	584,000	153,000	431,000
10	820,000	215,000	605,000

The bill numbers assume an 8 percent annual rise in LESCO retail tariffs, which is conservative given the last five years. Solar generation costs are flat (the only ongoing expense is panel cleaning twice a year and an inverter replacement around year 10 to 12).

A PKR 1.7 million hybrid install at this household saves roughly PKR 4.2 million over ten years and continues saving for another fifteen after that. Even with a now-modest export rate, the math still works because most of the savings come from not buying expensive electricity from LESCO, not from selling cheap electricity back to it.

Who solar makes sense for in 2026

The honest answer changes depending on who is asking.

Bill above PKR 25,000 a month, year-round. Solar is still a strong investment. Payback in five to seven years for a hybrid, faster if there is significant daytime load. The bigger the bill, the better the case.

Small business or shop owner. Particularly strong fit. Most loads run during sun hours. Self-consumption is high. Even without a battery, the math holds. Many shops in Liberty, Anarkali, and the industrial estates have payback inside four years.

Frequent load-shedding. If the area sees three or more hours of daily outage in summer (parts of Walton, the older townships, smaller cities outside Lahore), the value of the battery alone justifies the install. The saving on UPS batteries, generator fuel, and ruined appliances is the silent half of the return.

Owner of a 1 kanal+ home. Large roofs, large loads, room for proper system sizing. These are the installs that consistently deliver five-year paybacks.

Who should wait or skip it

Not every household should rush into solar. A few cases where the numbers do not add up yet.

Small flats with low bills. A PKR 8,000 monthly bill in a two-bedroom apartment will not justify even a small 3 kW install in reasonable time. The payback drifts past ten years. Better to wait for prices to drop further or for a higher consumption pattern.

Renters. A solar system is bolted to a roof. It is not portable. Spending PKR 1.5 million on a property someone else owns rarely makes sense unless the landlord is paying for it.

Planning to sell within two years. Solar adds some resale value, but the increment usually does not cover a fresh install in that timeframe.

Households where most consumption is at night. Without a battery, solar does little for these homes after the policy change. With a battery, it works, but the battery doubles the upfront cost and stretches the payback.

There is a reasonable case to wait a year if the household is in the marginal zone. Module prices have been drifting down through 2026 and inverter prices have stabilised. Another six to twelve months may shave 5 to 10 percent off the project cost.

The grandfathered customers

For anyone who already had a net metering connection on or before 8 February 2026, or had a complete application in process by that date, the old rules still apply. NEPRA granted retrospective protection after Senate pressure and a Prime Minister directive in February 2026. Reports suggest roughly 5,165 applications received in early February were processed under the original terms.

These customers keep their seven-year contracts and the old PKR 25+ per unit buyback rate for the remaining licence period. Worth flagging is that this protection is for the existing system. Expanding the system size after 9 February typically pulls the expanded portion into the new rules. Check with the DISCO before adding panels to an existing net metered system.

The verdict

Solar in Pakistan in 2026 is no longer a get-rich-quick on net metering. It is a hedge against rising electricity prices and a buffer against load-shedding. That is a less exciting pitch, but it is a more durable one. The first version depended on a policy that could change (and did). The second version depends on physics. Panels make electricity from sunlight. As long as that electricity offsets a rising LESCO bill, the system pays.

For a typical Lahore household with a summer bill above PKR 30,000, hybrid solar still makes financial sense. Payback in five to seven years is a return profile that compares favourably to rental property, government savings certificates, or most other places someone in Lahore could park PKR 1.5 to 2 million. The non-financial return (no inverter battery to maintain, no generator to fuel, no UPS that dies every two years, cool fans in a load-shed) is its own reward.

For someone with a small bill or a short time horizon, the answer is now closer to "not yet" than it would have been two years ago. That is a real and honest shift, not the kind of thing solar companies usually say out loud.