Solar system for a shop in Lahore

A shop is the easiest solar customer in Lahore

Houses are complicated. Half the consumption happens after sunset, so a house either exports cheap and buys back expensive, or pays for a battery. A shop has none of that problem. Shutter goes up at 10 am, comes down at 9 or 10 pm, and the heaviest hours land squarely between 11 am and 5 pm when the panels are working hardest.

That overlap is the whole argument. Every unit a shop generates gets consumed inside the shop at commercial rates. Nothing is sold to LESCO at the low buyback price. The system pays for itself against a tariff of PKR 48 to 65 per unit rather than against an export credit.

Add the second factor: commercial connections in Lahore sit in the unprotected slabs from day one. There is no cheap first 100 units. A shop on Hall Road or in Liberty Market paying PKR 34,000 a month is paying close to full rate on every single unit.

Sizing by shop type

Load, not floor area, decides the size. A 200 square foot mobile accessory shop with three LED strips and a pedestal fan will never justify 5kW. A 300 square foot bakery with two display chillers will.

Shop type	Typical monthly units	System size	Panels	Installed cost
Mobile / accessories / tailor	250 - 400	3 kW on-grid	6 x 585W	PKR 385,000 - 440,000
Garment / general store, 1 AC	500 - 700	3 kW on-grid	6 x 585W	PKR 400,000 - 465,000
Salon / barber, 2 AC	800 - 1,000	5 kW on-grid	10 x 585W	PKR 620,000 - 700,000
Bakery / kiryana with chillers	1,100 - 1,500	5 kW hybrid + 5 kWh	10 x 585W	PKR 900,000 - 980,000
Small restaurant, 3 AC	1,600 - 2,200	10 kW on-grid	16 x 645W bifacial	PKR 1,250,000 - 1,400,000

Component rates behind those figures for 2026 Lahore: 585W Tier-1 panel PKR 19,500, 645W bifacial PKR 21,000, 3kW hybrid inverter PKR 95,000, 5kW hybrid PKR 165,000, 10kW hybrid PKR 295,000, mounting PKR 7,000 per kW on a flat roof and PKR 12,000 per kW where the structure has to be elevated over a shop canopy. Electrical kit PKR 35,000, wiring PKR 25,000, labour PKR 20,000, LESCO net metering paperwork PKR 15,000.

Why on-grid, and when to break that rule

An on-grid inverter is cheaper, simpler and has fewer failure points. For a shop that only trades in daylight, it is the right default. The money that would have gone into a battery buys two more panels instead, and two more panels earn every single day.

Three situations flip that. First, a chiller or freezer that cannot afford a two hour outage. Second, a shop that stays open past 9 pm in an area with poor LESCO reliability. Third, a business where the outage itself is the loss, like a barber with a customer half-shaved. In those cases a hybrid inverter with a modest 5 kWh lithium bank at PKR 285,000 is the answer, not a house-sized battery bank. Sizing logic is covered in battery bank sizing for Lahore.

Anyone still running an IPS behind the counter should read IPS versus solar battery before spending twice on the same problem. Full service scope is on the on-grid solar and hybrid with battery pages.

Payback math on a real Lahore shop

A cloth shop in Ichhra bazaar, single-phase commercial connection, two 1.5-ton split ACs running from May to September, 14 tube lights, six fans, a counter fridge. Average consumption 940 units a month across the year, peaking at 1,500 in June. Average bill PKR 58,000 in summer, PKR 26,000 in winter.

Installed system: 5.85 kW of panels, ten 585W modules, a 5kW on-grid inverter, standard mounting, single-phase net metering. Total PKR 655,000.

Generation runs 700 to 850 units a month depending on season. Almost all of it is consumed on site because the shop is open when the sun is up. Post-install bills settled at PKR 14,000 to 19,000 in summer and PKR 3,500 to 6,000 in winter. Annual saving worked out to roughly PKR 290,000.

Payback: about 27 months. After that the shop keeps the saving for another twenty-plus years while the panels degrade slowly. Compare that against the same money sitting in a house build in solar installation cost in Lahore 2026.

The caveat nobody mentions

If the shop is rented, and most Lahore bazaar shops are, the system belongs to whoever paid for it and the roof belongs to the landlord. Removing a 10-panel structure and re-erecting it elsewhere costs PKR 60,000 to 80,000 and cracks a panel or two along the way. Either sign a lease long enough to cover payback, or split the cost with the owner and put it in writing. Shopkeepers who skipped this step have lost the whole system when a lease was not renewed.

Roof problems specific to bazaar shops

Shop roofs in Lahore are rarely straightforward. What comes up on survey again and again:

• No roof at all. Ground-floor shops in a multi-storey block have flats above them. The only options are a canopy structure over the front, which the local authority may object to, or a rented roof-share from the owner upstairs.
• Tin sheet roofs. Common in Shah Alam Market and Akbari Mandi side streets. Panels can be mounted, but the sheet needs a spanning purlin frame first, which adds PKR 12,000 per kW.
• Neighbouring building shade. Bazaar plots are narrow and tall. A four-storey building on the south side kills a shop roof from November to February. This is the single most common reason a quote gets declined after survey.
• Signboards and cable spaghetti. The tangle of overhead LESCO and cable-TV lines above bazaar streets makes crane access impossible. Panels go up by rope and hand, which adds a day of labour.

Net metering for a commercial meter

A commercial LESCO connection can get net metering. The sanctioned load has to be equal to or greater than the inverter capacity, so a shop with a 3kW sanctioned load cannot legally run a 5kW inverter without applying for a load extension first. That extension takes two to five weeks at the LESCO subdivision office and costs a security deposit.

Documents needed: CNIC, latest paid bill, ownership or tenancy proof, and the installer's test report. The full current process, including what changed this year, is written out in net metering changes for 2026 and the handling side on net metering service.

One realistic note about export. Under current rules, exported units are bought back well below retail. A shop that closes on Sunday exports a full day of generation for a small credit. That is fine, it costs nothing extra, but do not let anyone size the system on the assumption that Sunday exports are worth much.

What breaks on shop systems

Over eleven years of Lahore installs, the failure list for retail is short and repetitive. Dust is number one. A bazaar roof collects more grit than a DHA roof, and a shop that skips cleaning loses 20 to 25 percent by February. Cost of cleaning is minor, see solar cleaning cost in Lahore or book panel cleaning.

Second is DC connector corrosion after monsoon, usually where a cheap MC4 was crimped instead of a branded one. Third is inverter shutdown from over-temperature, because someone mounted it inside a hot store room with no airflow. Diagnostics and rates are on solar repair cost and repair service.

Shops across Johar Town, Gulberg, Model Town, Wapda Town and DHA commercial strips are covered, along with the bazaars in the walled city and Mughalpura. Estimate your own size on the calculator or ask through contact. Larger retail units may find the 10kW build more relevant.