The federal government has decided to introduce a new electricity management system that will allow power authorities to switch individual transformers on and off, Federal Minister for Power Awais Leghari said on Wednesday. Speaking to journalists at Parliament House, Leghari said the proposed system would eliminate the need to shut down entire feeders in areas where power theft is detected. Under the new mechanism, authorities would be able to disconnect only the transformer linked to theft or non-compliance, rather than affecting all consumers connected to a feeder.

Leghari described the initiative as a modern concept already being used in several countries and said the government was working on its implementation framework. He said the regulatory framework for the new system was expected to be finalised by April or May next year. The minister also rejected reports of additional electricity load-shedding in the country, maintaining that no extra outages were currently being carried out.

Commenting on net metering, Leghari said changes to the system had encouraged consumers to install battery storage solutions. The minister said the government's objective was to prevent the financial burden of a relatively small number of consumers from being shifted to the wider population. He noted that the steps protect the wider public and prevent the burden of a few from being placed on the remaining millions of consumers.

Separately, speaking at a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Energy chaired by Muhammad Idrees, Leghari said the government was also preparing regulations for a virtual grid system. He said the system would allow people to generate and store their own electricity, adding that work on its regulatory framework had already begun. Leghari said heavy investment was required to upgrade the power system and that approval for the required expenditure would be sought from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra).