The Situation GNM Solves
Plenty of Delhi businesses have the same shape of problem: several electricity connections, and usable roof on only one of them. A showroom with a small terrace and a warehouse with a large one. An office in a leased building and a workshop you own. Group Net Metering lets one solar plant offset the bills of more than one connection, provided they belong to the same consumer and sit within the same distribution licensee's area of supply. DERC's definition is precise on both points, and both are worth checking before you plan anything.
GNM Versus VNM: The Distinction That Decides Your Route
These two frameworks are often discussed together and are not interchangeable. Group Net Metering adjusts surplus across multiple connections of the same consumer. Virtual Net Metering adjusts the entire generation across connections of different participating consumers. So if all the meters are in one company's name, GNM is your framework. If separate legal entities or separate families want to share one plant, that is VNM, and VNM's eligibility list is narrower. Getting this wrong wastes an application cycle.
Who Can Use It
The 2019 guidelines state that the Group Net Metering framework is applicable for all consumers of the NCT of Delhi. That breadth is the point: unlike VNM, GNM is not restricted to residential consumers, societies and government offices. Commercial and industrial consumers are covered.
Only Surplus Is Exported, and Order Matters
Under GNM the plant still serves the premises it sits on first. Only where export exceeds import at that connection does the surplus get adjusted against your other connections, and it is adjusted in a sequence you set out in a priority list. The guidelines state that the sequence is deemed to begin with the connection where the system is located. You can revise the priority list once each financial year with two months' advance notice. This is a genuine lever: put your highest-tariff or highest-consumption connection near the top.
The 2025 Amendment That Improved the Economics
Time of Day tariffs mean a unit is not worth the same at all hours. Under the original guidelines, surplus credits were accounted as if they occurred in the off-peak block for ToD consumers, which valued them at the lowest rate. The Sixth Amendment, dated 5 June 2025, replaced this for Group Net Metering with the normal time block for both ToD and non-ToD consumers. For a commercial consumer on a ToD tariff, that is a straightforward improvement in what exported surplus is worth, and it applies to GNM specifically.
Capacity Is No Longer the Binding Constraint
The 2019 text limited systems to between 5 kW and 5,000 kW. The Fifth Amendment, effective 1 April 2024, changed this materially: ground-mounted systems under GNM or VNM may be up to five times the sanctioned load of the participating consumer, capped at 10 MW, and there is no cap on rooftop solar capacity under either framework. The same amendment permitted the system to be located across single or multiple locations. For a business with a large warehouse roof and small retail loads, this is the provision that makes the arithmetic work.
Charges, Waivers and Why Timing Matters
Systems commissioned by 31 March 2027 are exempt for their useful life from 100 percent of wheeling charge, banking charge, cross subsidy surcharge and other charges. Commissioned after that and up to 31 March 2030, 25 percent applies, increasing by 25 percent every third year to 100 percent. Separately, the licensee bears Service Line cum Development and network augmentation cost on 11 kV and below networks, until cumulative GNM and VNM capacity reaches 75 MW in BRPL, 50 MW in TPDDL, 30 MW in BYPL and 10 MW in NDMC. Licensees are required to publish remaining capacity quarterly. A project that misses a threshold is a different investment from one that does not.
The Application Route
Application is made to the distribution licensee in its prescribed format with a non-refundable fee of Rs 1,000 for feasibility analysis, and connectivity runs as a three-tier process: feasibility analysis, registration, then connection agreement. Before applying, have your consumer numbers, sanctioned loads and the intended priority list assembled, and confirm that every connection is billed by the same licensee.
What This Does Not Do
GNM does not let you offset a connection in another company's name, or one in a different DISCOM's territory. It does not exempt you from a technical feasibility decision at distribution transformer level, and available capacity is finite. It also does not fix a badly sized plant: the plant should still be sized against combined consumption across the connections you intend to offset, not against the roof area you happen to have.
Where Y2 Solar Comes In
For a business the hard part of GNM is rarely the panels. It is establishing that every connection is genuinely the same consumer in the same licensee area, sizing one plant against consumption spread across several premises, sequencing the priority list so the credits land where the tariff hurts most, and getting the paperwork through the DISCOM without losing a cycle. Y2 Solar acts as the enabler on all of it: site and roof survey, sanctioned-load and licensee verification across your connections, plant sizing against combined consumption, structure engineering including elevated and ground-mount options where roof area is short, the feasibility application and documentation pack, coordination with BRPL, BYPL or TPDDL through feasibility, registration and connection agreement, then installation, commissioning and AMC. Eligibility and approval remain the DISCOM's and DERC's decision, and we will tell you before you spend money if we think your case is unlikely to clear.
Verify Before You Sign
These guidelines have been amended six times since 2019, most recently in June 2025, and the figures above come from the DERC guideline text and its amendments. Confirm the current position on the DERC website or the Delhi Solar Portal, and ask your licensee for the remaining capacity under the waiver in your area. Y2 Solar can carry out the feasibility assessment, size the plant against your combined load and prepare the documentation, but eligibility and approval rest with the DISCOM and DERC.
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Guidance is informed by Y2 Solar project and approval experience. Costs, generation, savings, eligibility and timelines are estimates or process guidance—not guarantees. Confirm changing scheme and utility requirements on the official portals before procurement or submission.
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Send us the bills for the connections you want covered, with their sanctioned loads. Y2 Solar will confirm they sit under one licensee, size a single plant against the combined consumption, propose the priority list that saves you most, and set out what the DISCOM process will involve.