Greek households will be able to offset electricity cost by installing photovoltaic systems and provide electricity both to themselves and to the power grid, according to a decision signed on Tuesday by Deputy Environment, Greece ‘s Energy and Climate Change Minister Assimakis Papageorgiou.

The offsetting system, known as “net metering,” allows households and companies who produce their own electricity through photovoltaics to share it with the local utility company that then credits them for it against the cost of electricity it provides to them.

A meter will measure both the energy consumed by the producer — e.g. a household — and that provided to the utility grid. For a household, the bill issued every four months will factor in incoming and outgoing energy; if the incoming energy is greater, the household pays the difference, if it is the lesser of the two, the household will be credited for the next four-month cycle. A final statement will be issued at the end of the year, after which any surplus will not be carried over.

Installations will not have to be on roofs only, and self-producing energy consumers will pay a fee only for the electric energy they consume from the power grid or the system.

“The introduction of net metering allows many consumers — small and larger, householders and SMEs — to reduce significantly their energy cost,” Papageorgiou said, “while it pushes local economies to move to this immediate solution of establishing small photovoltaic systems with great benefits, without affecting costs for the rest of the consumers.”