Bill 455, presented on October 20, 2025 by legislator Ernesto Cedeño Alvarado of circuit 8-4 and sponsored by the Commerce and Economic Affairs Committee on October 28, amends and adds provisions to Law 6 of February 3, 1997, which establishes the Regulatory and Institutional Framework for the Provision of Public Electricity Service. The 43-page text was approved in First Reading on February 10, 2026 and has been pending Second Reading since February 12. Unlike Bill 308, which creates remote net metering and solar communities for those without their own rooftops, Bill 455 addresses the individual consumer who installs panels on their own property.

Article 7 of the bill introduces a new Chapter VIII to Title III of Law 6 of 1997, called 'Self-Consumption of Electricity,' with Articles 95-A through 95-Y. Article 95-A defines the scope of application: all regulated end users are included, whether residential, commercial, SMEs or industrial, public or private, that generate energy with new, renewable and clean sources for their own consumption. Large customers authorized for the wholesale market and self-generators whose production is mainly intended for sale are expressly excluded.

Article 95-C recognizes the right to fair, transparent and verifiable energy credits for surpluses injected into the distribution grid, which must be reflected clearly and auditably on the bill at no additional cost. Article 95-I allows those credits to be accumulated for a maximum period of twelve months and allows up to fifty percent of accumulated credits to be transferred to another account belonging to the same user within the concession area of the same distribution company or to accounts of relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity. The explanatory memorandum states that energy subsidies in Panama exceed two hundred million balboas annually and that the Energy Transition Agenda 2020-2030 of the National Energy Secretariat includes self-consumption as a strategic axis.

Articles 95-R and 95-S establish maximum response times for interconnection requests: twenty business days for systems of up to fifteen kilowatts, thirty days for installations between fifteen and five hundred kilowatts, and forty-five days for systems above five hundred kilowatts. Failure to meet those deadlines triggers positive administrative silence: the request is considered approved. Article 95-N prohibits distribution companies from imposing barriers or obstacles not provided for in the regulations, unauthorized additional charges or unjustified technical requirements. Article 95-Q requires ASEP to implement within twelve months a free single-window digital platform for all self-consumption procedures.

Article 95-W sets a period of ninety calendar days for ASEP, in coordination with the Electric Transmission Company and the National Energy Secretariat, to issue the technical interconnection regulations. This is the most relevant differentiator from Bill 308: the regulatory period is less than one third as long. Article 95-V protects projects already interconnected at the time of promulgation, guaranteeing their original benefits for a minimum of five years or until recovery of the investment, whichever comes first. The bill does not provide for a state subsidy for the acquisition of equipment; compensation for surpluses operates entirely between the prosumer and the distribution company, with no disbursement from the treasury.