EWA to introduce ‘net metering’ soon

Manama : In order to encourage households use renewable energy, Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) will soon introduce ‘net metering’ to measure power consumption in the Kingdom, Dr. Abdul Hussain bin Ali Mirza, Minister of Electricity and Water Affairs, said yesterday. 

“Net metering allows the household to send excess electricity produced by the solar panels back to the power grid and the households will be compensated by the government for the electricity sent back to the grid,” he said.

Explaining it further, the minister said, “The meter which is currently being used by EWA is ‘one way’ as it measures only how-much the households are consuming and the electricity and water authority send them invoices based on it. In future once we finish implementing net metering, there will be more to it. When households install solar energy, not only will they not have to pay for the electricity they produced they also can ‘net it’ and charge the government for the excess electricity they have produced,” he said.

“We believe that this will encourage households to go for renewable energy. So anyone who is interested in installing this in their house will be given all the support they need,” he said. With this technology, consumers would not have to worry about wastage of power produced by renewable energy devices. The households benefits from the electricity produced by the solar panels, which they use and also from the excess electricity they do not use.  The minister said that Bahrain has taken a number of steps in implementing renewable energy. 

“The cost of renewable energy has come down tremendously. Renewable energy such as solar are completely clean, it doesn’t destruct the environment. Internationally governments are trying to reduce Co2 emissions,” he said.

 “Another factor is that tariff on natural gas and electricity in all the GCC countries is going up gradually which means the renewable energy can now compete with fossil fuel. Recently, the government established a centre for sustainable energy which we call the ‘sustainable energy unit’,” he said. “To achieve targets for renewable energy a number of projects have been approved by the cabinet. Additionally, a ministerial committee chaired by myself with representatives from all ministries was formed to focus on renewable energy,” he said.