Net metering in Greater Noida: NPCL process

Net metering in Greater Noida and Greater Noida West is handled by NPCL (Noida Power Company Limited), not by the UPPCL company that serves Noida city. The rules come from the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC), the subsidy application goes through the national PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana portal, and the meter itself is fitted by NPCL after its inspection. Verde Solaire files the application on NPCL's portal for every Greater Noida customer and follows it to activation.

Use this guide to work through NPCL’s seven stages, prepare your documents and plan the route from application to commissioning. Timelines are labelled clearly when they come from regulations rather than reported experience.

First check the name on your bill

The distributor for Greater Noida and Greater Noida West is NPCL (Noida Power Company Limited). It is a separate licensee with its own portal and its own inspection team, distinct from the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation (UPPCL) companies that serve the rest of the state.

Choose the distributor named on your bill, not the one suggested by a sector name or pin code. An application sent to the wrong distributor cannot be matched to your connection and will stall at feasibility. If the bill says PVVNL (Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited), use the Noida net-metering guide; if it says NPCL, you are in the right place.

• PVVNL

  Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited

  Noida city, Ghaziabad and western UP

• NPCL

  Noida Power Company Limited

  Greater Noida and Greater Noida West

What the UPERC rules say

The framework is the state's, not NPCL's: under the UPERC rooftop solar regulations of 2019, residential users may choose net or gross metering, and the DISCOM allows capacity within transformer limits. Net metering means one bidirectional meter records the units you export in the day and the units you import at night, and the bill is worked out on the difference. Gross metering pays you a tariff for everything you generate and bills you separately for everything you use; it suits a roof that generates far more than the house consumes, which is rare for a home.

The transformer limit matters in the newer societies of Greater Noida West. The DISCOM may decline capacity that would overload the local transformer, so a 10 kW request on a connection with a small sanctioned load can be trimmed at feasibility. Sizing to the sanctioned load, or applying for a load increase first, avoids that.

Surplus that is still unused is compensated at the weighted-average large-solar tariff plus 25% (Third Amendment, in force from July 2025).

Verde Solaire's July 2025 post for the region put the point plainly: net metering is allowed by both NPCL and PVVNL, and the company handles the full application and the follow-up.

The seven stages, in order

The order below follows the national portal's process, with the NPCL-specific parts marked.

1. 01

   Confirm your electricity board and sanctioned load

   Take the consumer number, the licensee name and the sanctioned load in kW from the latest NPCL bill. The sanctioned load caps what feasibility will approve, so a 5 kW plan on a 3 kW connection needs a load increase first.
2. 02

   Apply on the PM Surya Ghar portal, or directly to NPCL

   For a subsidised system, register on pmsuryaghar.gov.in with Uttar Pradesh, NPCL, the consumer number and the mobile number linked to the connection, then apply for rooftop solar and pick a registered vendor. A system without subsidy is applied for on NPCL's portal alone.
3. 03

   Feasibility approval by NPCLvaries; follow up if delayed

   NPCL checks the connection, the sanctioned load and the transformer. This is often the stage worth following up on if progress stalls.
4. 04

   Installation by the registered vendor

   Panels, inverter, structure, earthing, protection boxes and the cable run to the meter position. For the subsidy the modules and cells must be Indian-made, and the cells on ALMM List-II.
5. 05

   Net-meter application with the plant details

   The vendor uploads the plant capacity, module and inverter make and model, installation photographs and the equipment certificates, and applies for the net meter.
6. 06

   NPCL inspection and meter installation20–30 days after installation, installer's estimate

   NPCL inspects the plant, checks the earthing and the protection, and replaces the existing meter with a bidirectional one. Until this is done the system may be installed but the export is not credited.
7. 07

   Commissioning certificate and subsidy claimofficial: within 30 days of the claim

   The certificate is issued on the portal. You then submit bank details and a cancelled cheque; the subsidy is paid to your account.

Every subsidised installation must use both the modules and the cells must be made in India, and from 1 June 2026 the cells must appear on ALMM List-II, the approved list of cell models and manufacturers. Under the scheme, the installer must be a vendor registered on the national portal, and you choose the vendor on pmsuryaghar.gov.in. Verde Solaire is a registered PM Surya Ghar vendor in both Delhi and Uttar Pradesh; check the listing yourself before paying an advance, as the vendor check guide explains.

The documents checklist

Keep these to hand before the application is started. The first four are what Verde Solaire's published Noida and Greater Noida guide lists; the rest are what the national portal asks for at registration and at the subsidy stage.

• The latest NPCL electricity bill, for the consumer number, the licensee name and the sanctioned load.
• Aadhaar of the consumer in whose name the connection stands.
• A second identity proof.
• Your signature on the application and the net-metering agreement forms.
• The mobile number linked to the connection, for the one-time password at registration.
• Proof that you own the house; the scheme's eligibility is an Indian citizen who owns a house with a suitable roof, has a valid electricity connection and has not taken an earlier solar subsidy.
• For the subsidy claim, your bank details and a cancelled cheque.

The installer supplies the technical file: the single-line diagram, the module and inverter datasheets and certificates, the installation photographs and the safety certification. If the connection is in a parent's or a previous owner's name, get the name changed with NPCL first; the subsidy is paid to the account of the consumer on the bill.

Timeline: official rules and practice

The honest answer to "how long does net metering take with NPCL" is that only parts of it are fixed by anyone. The table separates the two.

There is one published data point from this side of the expressway. In April 2023 Verde Solaire commissioned a 10 kW plant on a Greater Noida rooftop and wrote that the DISCOM had installed the net meter very quickly. One case from 2023 is not a rule, but it shows the board can move fast when the file is complete.

Where the file stalls, and who to call

Three things are worth checking before you chase the board, because each sends a file back or leaves it waiting.

The first is a mismatch between the sanctioned load and the requested capacity, which is caught at feasibility. The second is an incomplete technical upload at the net-meter stage: a missing certificate, or photographs that do not show the earthing. The third is the meter change itself, which waits on NPCL's field team and is the stage a homeowner can do least about.

If a stage stalls, UPNEDA is the state nodal agency, and its district solar cells help with installation and net metering. The district cell for Gautam Buddh Nagar is the office that can ask NPCL for a status on your behalf. Verde Solaire's coordinators keep customers informed at each stage; a Delhi customer, Arun Sibal, wrote that the delay in his net meter "was actually not in control of Verde" and that "Verde people always kept me in the loop regarding the net meter status". That is the useful thing an installer can promise: not that the board will be quick, but that you will know where the file is. The installed but not activated guide covers what to do in the gap between commissioning and energisation.

What the net meter is worth on an NPCL bill

Uttar Pradesh's urban domestic tariff applies in Greater Noida, and NPCL charges the same slab rates as the state DISCOMs with a 10% regulatory discount. The fixed charge is ₹110 per kW per month on the sanctioned load.

The discount has a small consequence for net metering. Each unit your system offsets is worth a little less to you than it would be on a PVVNL bill across the expressway, so the same 3 kW system pays back a few months later in Greater Noida than in Noida city. The fixed charge stays on the bill whatever the meter reads, which is why no honest page promises a nil bill. A 3 kW system here generates about 338 units a month; the bill calculator shows what remains after those units are netted off for your own consumption and load, and the Greater Noida pricing page has the cost and subsidy for 1 to 10 kW.

Greater Noida West and society roofs

Greater Noida West is inside NPCL's area. Its high-rise societies raise a different question from the villas in the lettered sectors: whose connection is the system on. An individual flat owner usually has no roof right, so the practical route is a society-level system on the common-area connection, which the scheme supports at ₹18,000 per kW; the housing societies page sets it out. A villa inside a gated society needs the society's consent for the roof and the cable route before the feasibility visit, and it helps to have that letter in the file from the start.

Independent houses in the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Zeta and Omicron sectors and around Pari Chowk are the simplest case, and the ones Verde Solaire's July 2025 service list names. The installation page for Greater Noida describes the roof survey that comes before the application.