Solar in Faisal Town Lahore — sizing what a 10-marla actually needs

Faisal Town in 2026 — what the average house looks like

Faisal Town runs along Akbar Chowk and Kalma Chowk on the Ferozepur Road side. The named blocks are A, B, C, D, F, Akbar Block, Nishtar Block, and the outer commercial strips. Most homes are 10-marla, single-family, two-storey. A few 5-marla streets exist on the C and F block fringes. The 1-kanal houses are fewer and mostly sit on the main boulevards.

A typical 10-marla Faisal Town house in 2026 has four bedrooms, five ACs (three inverter, two non-inverter), a fridge, a deep freezer, two TVs, a microwave, a water pump, and around 12 to 14 ceiling fans. The June bill on this house is PKR 55,000 to PKR 80,000. The right size is 10 kW. The sub-10 kW systems do not cover the peak summer load and the homeowner ends up with PKR 18,000+ bills despite spending PKR 1.1 million on solar.

Why 7.5 kW is the wrong size here

A 7.5 kW system in Faisal Town generates roughly 32 to 36 kWh on a clear May day. The actual home load on a summer afternoon with 3 ACs running, fridge, TV, pump cycling, fans on, lights on by 7 pm, is 6 to 8 kWh per hour for 6 hours, plus the rest of the day at 1 to 2 kWh per hour. That comes to 50 to 65 kWh of daily consumption in June and July. A 7.5 kW system covers about 55 to 65 percent of that. A 10 kW system covers 85 to 95 percent. The price difference is PKR 200,000 to PKR 300,000. The bill difference is PKR 8,000 to PKR 12,000 per month for 4 to 5 months. The payback on the upsize is under 2 years.

The 10 kW upsize is also future-proof. Faisal Town families add an AC every two or three years as kids grow up or in-laws move in. A 7.5 kW that was right today will be undersized in 30 months. A 10 kW that has 15 percent headroom on day one will still cover the load in 2029.

Street access — Faisal Town's quiet problem

The street width inside the C, D, and F blocks is 18 to 22 ft. A standard panel delivery truck with 18 to 20 panels stacked is 8 ft wide and 24 ft long, and it cannot turn easily into the inner streets. Two solutions. The team either uses a smaller pickup that makes two trips, or the panels are unloaded on the block's main road and trolleyed in. Either way it adds 2 to 3 hours on delivery day. Akbar Block and Nishtar Block have wider 30 ft streets and the standard truck works fine.

The other access constraint is overhead wires. Faisal Town has a lot of low-hanging cable TV and fibre cables on the inner streets. The crane boom needs clearance, so panels are often hand-carried up an extension ladder by 2 to 3 workers instead of being craned. That is the install team's problem to solve, but the homeowner should know it takes an extra half-day.

Roof reality on a Faisal Town 10-marla

The typical roof on a Faisal Town 10-marla double-storey is 540 to 600 sqft of net usable area after subtracting the mumty, the stairwell shed, the water tank platform, and the parapet setback. That fits 16 to 20 panels of 580W comfortably, which is the panel count for a 10 kW system at 580W. Most Faisal Town roofs fit a 10 kW without compromise. A 12 kW starts to need creative layout. A 15 kW only fits on the bigger corner houses or when the homeowner agrees to move the water tank.

The roof slab in homes built 2000-onward is usually 6 inches RCC and structurally fine for solar. Older 1980s-1990s homes in the back of D and F blocks sometimes have 5-inch slabs and need a structural review. The cost is the same as any other survey, no upcharge.

A real install — 10 kW hybrid, Akbar Block, April 2026

Homeowner: 10 marla, double-storey, joint family of seven, five inverter ACs, summer bill peaked at PKR 78,000 in July 2025.

Item	Detail	PKR
Panels	18 × 580W Longi bifacial	610,000
Inverter	10 kW Sungrow hybrid SH10RT, NEPRA-approved	540,000
Battery	5 kWh Dyness lithium	235,000
Mounting	Galvanised L2 + L3 structure, 6 ft elevation	165,000
Cable, conduit, MC4	4 sqmm DC, 16 sqmm AC, 28 m runs	92,000
Protection	DC SPD, AC SPD, DC isolator, AC breaker	42,000
Net metering	LESCO file, drawings, AGM coordination	40,000
Labour, commissioning	3-day install	85,000
Total		1,809,000

Bill after commissioning, May 2026: PKR 11,400. The 5 kWh battery handles the 8 pm to 10 pm peak when 2 ACs are running upstairs and the grid sometimes goes off for an hour.

The LESCO Faisal Town feeder — capacity matters

Faisal Town addresses are served by the LESCO Township Sub-Division (shared with parts of Iqbal Town and Township). In 2024 and 2025 some Faisal Town feeders hit their net metering allocation cap, and new applications got queued until LESCO increased the feeder allocation. As of early 2026 the feeders are accepting fresh applications, with the AGM inspection booked 3 to 4 weeks out. Total time from application to bi-directional meter is around 8 weeks.

Two things help the file move faster. First, a complete document set on day one, CNIC, LESCO bill, property paper, sealed structural drawing, single-line diagram, NEPRA-approved inverter datasheet. Missing one document means the file gets returned and goes back to the bottom of the queue. Second, a polite follow-up at the AGM office in the third and fifth week. The applications that have someone checking in get scheduled faster than the ones that are just sitting.

Faisal Town sizing chart

House	Summer bill (PKR)	System	Cost (PKR)
5 marla, light load	22,000 – 35,000	5 kW on-grid	820,000 – 950,000
5 marla, 3 ACs	35,000 – 50,000	6 to 7 kW	950,000 – 1,150,000
10 marla, 4 ACs	50,000 – 70,000	7.5 kW	1,100,000 – 1,300,000
10 marla, 5 ACs	65,000 – 90,000	10 kW on-grid	1,400,000 – 1,650,000
10 marla, 5 ACs + battery	65,000 – 90,000	10 kW hybrid + 5 kWh	1,750,000 – 1,950,000
1-kanal boulevard	95,000 – 140,000	12 to 15 kW	2,100,000 – 2,700,000

Common questions from Faisal Town homeowners

Does the homeowner need permission from Faisal Town Cooperative Housing Society? For routine rooftop installs on private property, no formal approval is needed. The society does ask that the structure does not encroach beyond the parapet line on the front facade. The survey engineer designs around that.

What happens during a long LESCO outage? With an on-grid-only system the inverter shuts down for safety. With a hybrid plus battery, the home runs on solar plus battery during the day, and battery only at night. A 5 kWh battery on a 10 kW hybrid typically gives 4 to 6 hours of light load running, or 2 hours with one AC.

Can the system run a tube well? A 1 hp submersible at 750W runs fine on a 10 kW hybrid with battery. A 2 hp at 1.5 kW also works but starts to eat into battery reserve if used at night. For homes with bigger pumps a dedicated solar pump controller is a better answer than running the pump off the house inverter.

Install time and what disrupts daily life

A 10 kW Faisal Town install takes 3 days on site. Day one is structure and mounting. Day two is panels and DC cabling. Day three is inverter, AC side, commissioning, testing. The home power is off for around 2 hours on day three during the changeover. Families plan that for 11 am to 1 pm and the fridge is fine.