If you are putting solar on your roof in Sri Lanka, one of the first real decisions has nothing to do with panels or inverters. It is how your system connects to the grid — and it changes how much you actually save.
There are three schemes: Net Metering, Net Accounting and Net Plus. They sound similar and get used interchangeably in conversation, but they work differently and suit different buildings. Choosing the wrong one can quietly cost you for twenty years, because the rate you sign at is locked in for the life of the agreement. Here is how each works, and how to decide.
Net Metering: bank your units, don’t sell them
Under Net Metering, your system feeds surplus electricity into the grid and the grid keeps a running credit of those units for you. When your solar is not producing — at night, or on a dull day — you draw those banked units back. Your bill reflects only the net difference between what you used and what you generated.
The important part: you are not paid cash for surplus. PUCSL allows banked energy to be carried forward for up to ten years, so its value is capped at your own future consumption. If you generate far more than you will ever use, the extra sits as credit rather than income.
Best for: homes and businesses whose yearly generation roughly matches their yearly consumption, and who want to cancel out their own bill rather than earn from the grid.
Net Accounting: get paid for what you export
Net Accounting uses the same single-meter setup, but instead of banking surplus units you are paid for them. You consume what you need directly, and the utility pays you for the excess you export at the feed-in rate fixed in your Power Purchase Agreement — for twenty years.
That twenty-year lock is the point to understand. The rate is set when you sign, and it does not move afterwards. It also means the rate on offer when you sign matters far more than any other number in the proposal — and, as the next section shows, that rate is now reviewed roughly twice a year.
Best for: buildings that generate more than they consume during daylight and want cash for the surplus rather than banked credit.
Net Plus: your roof as a separate power plant
Net Plus separates the two flows completely, using two meters. You buy all the electricity your building needs at the normal retail rate, and separately you are paid for everything your system generates, regardless of what you consume. Generation and consumption are treated as two independent accounts.
There is a related variant, Net Plus Plus, which allowed systems larger than a building’s contract demand and supported roof-rental and aggregator arrangements. PUCSL’s 2026 industry analysis records that CEB stopped approving new Net Plus Plus connections in March 2025 over grid-management concerns, so it should not be assumed available — check the current position before building a case around it.
Best for: owners who want to treat solar purely as a generation asset rather than a way to cut a bill.
The rates, and why they changed the maths
Feed-in rates for rooftop solar have been revised three times in twenty-five months, and the current schedule carries an expiry date on its face.
Systems signed from November 2022 earned a flat Rs. 37.00 per unit up to 500 kW, and Rs. 34.50 above it. From 1 July 2024 that dropped to Rs. 27.06 and Rs. 23.18. In June 2025 the flat structure was replaced altogether with a tiered one. And on 25 August 2026 the tiers were redrawn again — six bands became five, the thresholds moved, and the rates went up.
Rooftop solar feed-in rates, effective 25 August 2026 (20-year agreement):
- Up to 10 kW — Rs. 23.11
- Above 10 kW to 40 kW — Rs. 19.15
- Above 40 kW to 250 kW — Rs. 17.11
- Above 250 kW to 1 MW — Rs. 15.81
- Above 1 MW — Rs. 15.81
This schedule is valid until 24 February 2027. That is the detail most buyers miss. It is not an open-ended tariff — it is a six-month window, and the rate you are offered after it expires may be different again.
For commercial sizes the August revision was a modest improvement. A 200 kW system moves from Rs. 15.49 under the June 2025 tiers to Rs. 17.11, about 10.5% better. A system above 1 MW moves from Rs. 14.46 to Rs. 15.81.
Three things follow from this.
First, existing agreements are unaffected. If you signed a PPA in 2023, you are still on Rs. 37.00 for the balance of your twenty years. Each revision applies to new agreements only.
Second — and this is the part that changes system design — a unit you use yourself is still worth considerably more than a unit you export. Self-consumption saves you the full retail rate you would otherwise pay CEB or LECO, and retail rates have moved the other way — increases took effect in April 2026 and again on 11 May 2026, and the May schedule is the one currently in force. On an industrial supply at 400/230 V with contract demand under 42 kVA, a daytime unit costs Rs. 39.00. Against an export rate of Rs. 17.11 for a 40–250 kW system, self-consumption is worth about two and a third times export; above 250 kW, closer to two and a half.
Third, when you sign now matters for twenty years. A rate that is reviewed twice a year, combined with a scheme that fixes your rate at signature for two decades, means the timing of your agreement is a commercial decision in its own right — and that no business case should be built on the assumption that the export rate will stay where it is.
What that means in practice
The old logic was straightforward: build as much as the roof allows and export the surplus. That no longer produces the best return for most commercial buildings.
The better approach now is to size the system against your actual daytime load, use as much of the generation as possible on site, and treat export as what it is — a lower-value fallback for the hours you cannot absorb. For buildings with a sharp evening load or heavy weekend downtime, battery storage has moved from an expensive extra to something worth putting numbers against, and the same August 2026 decision set a dedicated rate for rooftop solar paired with storage for the first time.
How to decide
Three questions get you most of the way:
- When do you use power? A factory running through the day consumes its own solar directly and benefits most from self-consumption. A building that sits empty during peak sun exports more and lives or dies by the feed-in rate.
- How does your generation compare to your consumption? Roughly matched points toward Net Metering. A consistent daytime surplus points toward Net Accounting.
- Is this an asset or a bill-reducer? If you want an income-generating plant, Net Plus fits. If you want to cut an operating cost, Net Metering or Net Accounting usually wins.
The honest answer is that the right scheme depends on your building’s load profile, and a proper assessment beats any rule of thumb. A good installer will ask for twelve months of consumption data before recommending a scheme — not sell you the biggest system the roof will hold.
Talk it through with First Energy
We have spent a decade designing solar for Sri Lankan homes, factories and utility-scale sites, across all three connection schemes. If you would like a straight assessment of which one fits your building, based on your real consumption rather than a template, get in touch for a site evaluation.
Sources: PUCSL rooftop solar PV tariff schedule effective 25 August 2026 · PUCSL Decision on Electricity Tariffs, May 2026 · PUCSL Analysis on Rooftop Solar Integration and Industry Growth in Sri Lanka (2026) · PUCSL Rooftop Solar PV Connection Schemes · EconomyNext, Newswire.lk, Lanka Business Online.