Net metering in Bangladesh
The 2025 guidelines changed who can apply, how large a system you may install, and how you are paid for what you export. Here is what actually changed, and what it means for your roof.
The short version
Four changes that matter
SREDA revised the Net Metering Guideline in 2025. For most commercial and industrial buyers, four changes decide whether a rooftop project is worth doing at all.
You can now cover your full sanctioned load
The cap on system size rose from 70% of sanctioned load to 100%. On a factory with 1,000kW sanctioned, that is the difference between a 700kW system and a 1,000kW system, from the same roof, under the same rules.
Single-phase connections qualify
Net metering was previously limited to three-phase consumers. Single-phase connections are now eligible, which brings homes, small commercial units and housing societies into the scheme for the first time.
Prepaid and smart meters are included
Participation was previously restricted to postpaid meters. Prepaid and smart meter consumers can now apply, removing an exclusion that had nothing to do with the roof.
You are paid in taka, not credits
Electricity exported to the grid is now settled by direct payment in Bangladeshi taka into a bank or mobile banking account, rather than only as a credit carried against future bills.
Sizing
Sanctioned load is the number that governs everything
Not your roof area, not your monthly bill, not your peak demand. The guideline caps your system at 100% of sanctioned load, and that figure is printed on your electricity bill.
Find your sanctioned load
On the bill
It appears on your utility bill, usually in kW or kVA. If your bill shows kVA, the usable figure depends on your power factor, which is worth checking before anyone quotes you a system size.
Check it against the roof
The binding constraint
The cap is a ceiling, not a target. Usable roof area, shading, and structural capacity often allow less than 100%. A survey establishes which limit binds first, and it is frequently the roof rather than the rule.
Do not oversize
The most common rejection
A system proposed above the sanctioned load cap will be returned. If you genuinely need more generation than the cap allows, the route is to apply to increase sanctioned load first, or to look at a structure outside net metering.
Process
How an application actually runs
The 2025 revision introduced an online application system. The sequence below is the practical order of work, and each stage has a way of failing that is worth knowing in advance.
Establish the technical case
Sanctioned load, connection voltage, roof structure, shading across the year, and available clear area once tanks, stairwells and walkways are excluded. This is a physical survey, not a desk exercise.
Design to the standard the reviewer applies
Single line diagram, protection scheme, earthing designed separately from the building system, and inverter specification. Applications are more often returned for incomplete documentation than for anything wrong with the roof.
Check the equipment against the approved list
Modules and inverters should be verified against SREDA’s approved product list before purchase, not after. Equipment bought first and checked later is an expensive way to discover a problem.
File with your distribution utility
DPDC, DESCO, BPDB, REB or your relevant utility, through the online system. Outstanding dues on the account should be cleared before submission, because they will stop an otherwise sound application.
Install, inspect and synchronise
Construction, utility inspection, meter change and grid synchronisation. Commissioning records captured at this stage are what warranty claims depend on years later.
Economics
Why the 2025 change moved the numbers
Two things happened close together. The capacity cap rose to 100% of sanctioned load, and in June 2026 BERC raised retail electricity tariffs by an average of 16.68%, the effect of which falls hardest on consumers who draw most during daylight hours.
A rooftop system offsets consumption at the tariff you would otherwise have paid. When that tariff rises, the same array is worth more every year it runs, and the payback shortens without anything about the system changing.
Honest caveats
What this page does not tell you
Procedural detail varies between distribution utilities, and requirements are revised. Treat this as orientation rather than as a substitute for your utility’s current documentation, and confirm specifics with them or with us before committing capital.
Sources: SREDA Net Metering Guideline 2025; reporting on the 2025 revision in pv magazine, 10 September 2025; BERC retail tariff revision effective 3 June 2026 as reported by Dhaka Tribune and The Business Standard.
Send us a bill and we will size it
A recent electricity bill gives us your tariff, your consumption and your sanctioned load, which is everything needed for a first answer on what your roof can carry.