Dominican Republic imposes new fees on solar power exports
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The national utility Edesur will begin charging some rooftop solar customers in the Dominican Republic for electricity they send back to the power grid starting November 1.
The regulatory body of the electricity sector in the Dominican Republic issued the change in January. The new rule specifically affects self-generation users on the BTS-1 residential and BTS-2 commercial low-voltage tariffs who joined the net-metering program before October 2021.
These customers will pay a distribution network usage fee based on the amount of electricity they inject into the grid. Edesur calculates this fee by multiplying the exported kilowatt-hours by 25% of the energy component of the customer's specific tariff. This charge applies only to the power exported to the grid rather than the total electricity produced by a rooftop system or the customer's entire electric bill.
The utility will add this new grid usage fee to the other existing charges on a customer's regular bill. The policy change may reduce the financial value of surplus energy for families and neighborhood businesses that invested in solar panels to save on costs. This shift could make rooftop solar less effective at providing steady bill relief for those who joined the program early. Edesur did not state how many customers will be affected by the new rules.
