ISLAMABAD: The Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) has simplified certification regulations for installers of solar and wind projects in the country to facilitate promotion and expansion of renewable energy sources.

The board of directors of AEDB has now enacted new Alternative Energy Development Board (Certification) Regulations, 2021, effective from Aug 30, 2021, as part of “Ease of Doing Business” and for promotion of clean and green energy.

Previously, AEDB had approved the Certification Regulations in 2018 for safe, secure and quality-assured supply of solar and wind energy generation projects, products and systems and installation and servicing thereof for small-scale industrial, agricultural, commercial and residential consumers.

Under the Regulations, the AEDB carried out certification of vendors, installers and service providers for installation of wind and solar systems (both net-metering systems and off-grid systems.

AEDB hopes new rules will act as a catalyst for promotion of clean, green energy

In the process, AEDB has certified a total of 126 vendors, installers and service providers who have installed approximately 13,000

net-metering based systems all across the country with cumulative capacity of more than 200 megawatts.

The new regulations have been formulated after extensive consultation with all stakeholders both in the public and in private sector to simplify procedures laid down in the existing regulations for opening up the market to create competition.

In order to give the broader scope to the regulations and to allow certified companies to avail the concessional financing of State Bank of Pakistan, the regulations are applicable for all size of projects for distributed generation, except net-metering which is up to one megawatt only. The term of the certificate under the new regulations has also been increased from one year to 3 years.

By virtue of these regulations, the certified installer would be responsible for providing minimum warranties for the wind and solar energy equipment as prescribed under the regulations. Further, the Installer shall also ensure that the projects and the equipment comprised therein was compliant with international standards and specifications.

A certified installer shall be required to educate the customer about the project equipment, its performance and its installation method and provide, at minimum, the warranties for the equipment and the project as a whole and shall include the same in the customer agreement.

Warranty for PV modules or wind turbine generators (WTGs) against manufacturing defects would be 10 years, standard performance warranty for PV modules or WTGs would be 25 years and workmanship including locally supplied parts (except frames) – 5 years.

The warranty for mounting frames and associated parts would be 10 years minimum that can be up to 25 years if opted or required by the customer. Likewise warranty for grid tie invertors would be 5 years and one year for hybrid invertors.

The annual energy yield would be subject to no tampering by unauthorised personnel, regular maintenance services hired from installer but not for natural or man-made disasters.

The installers would rectify a breach of warranty at its own cost within 14 days of breach of warranty and shall pay appropriate compensation to the customer on installer’s failure to rectify the breach of warranty.

AEDB CEO Shah Jahan Mirza said new simplified regulations would act as a catalyst for promotion and deployment of clean and green energy in Pakistan through distributed generation exploiting huge wind and solar energy potential in the country.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2021