Net metering is a billing arrangement, not a technology. The panels do not care where the electrons go; the meter and the tariff schedule decide what you are paid for them. Understanding the arrangement is what separates a system that pays back in four years from one that takes seven.
Under net metering your connection gets a bi-directional meter. Units you consume from the grid are imported; units your system produces beyond what the house uses at that moment are exported. At the end of each billing cycle the discom nets the two and bills you for the difference. Export in excess of import is carried forward as a credit in units.
The rules that differ
Apply early, install once
The meter application runs in parallel with fabrication and installation. Started on day one, it almost never becomes the critical path; started after commissioning, it reliably adds three to five weeks before you can export a single unit.
What it means for sizing
Because leftover credits settle at a low rate, the best economics come from consuming what you generate rather than banking it. For most homes that means sizing to annual consumption and shifting flexible loads — the washing machine, the pump, the EV charger — into daylight hours, where every unit avoids the full retail tariff instead of earning the settlement rate.
Every unit you use as it is generated is worth the tariff you did not pay. Every unit you export is worth what the discom decides it is worth.
What to take away
Sandeep Kaul
Field operations
Runs survey and installation crews. Fifteen years on North Indian roofs, most of them in the two weeks before monsoon.
Run these numbers against your own bill
The calculator uses state-wise generation data and the current subsidy slabs. Two inputs, one estimate, no call required.
