Solar without net metering: should you still install in Lahore?

The question more Lahoris are asking in 2026

Since the NEPRA Prosumer Regulations 2026 came into force on 9 February, a steady stream of homeowners have been asking the same question. The export buyback rate dropped from PKR 25 to PKR 11 per unit. The old net metering scheme is shut to new applicants. So is it still worth installing solar without the net metering benefit?

The short answer is yes, for most households with a meaningful electricity bill. The longer answer requires understanding what changed in the goal of solar after February 2026, and how to size a system so you do not waste money sending cheap electricity back to a grid that no longer pays well for it.

What "self-consumption" solar actually means

Self-consumption is the simple idea that the solar electricity made on your roof should be used inside your house, in real time, by your own appliances. Whatever your ACs, fridges, and fans are using at noon should come from the panels. Only the genuine surplus should leave the house.

Under net metering, this distinction did not matter. Every unit exported earned the same value as a unit imported, so the economics did not care whether the solar electricity stayed home or went to LESCO. Now the gap is large. A unit consumed at home saves roughly PKR 50 to PKR 60 (the retail tariff). A unit exported earns roughly PKR 11. The job has changed from "make as much as possible" to "use as much as possible."

Net billing is still available under the new prosumer rules for those who want to register. The export rate is just much less attractive. Many homeowners now choose to skip the meter change entirely and run a "solar-only" connection where the system is sized to never export.

How to size a solar system when you are not exporting

The old sizing rule was simple. Look at the monthly bill, divide by the average tariff, and pick a system that generates enough units to cancel out the import. With net metering, oversizing was fine. Anything extra became export credit.

The new rule is the opposite. Size to your daytime load, not your full bill. Anything past that is wasted generation. A 10 kW system on a house that only uses 4 kW during the day will dump 6 kW into the grid all afternoon at the low buyback rate, or with a no-export connection it will simply throttle down and produce less than its capacity.

A reliable starting point is the "midday load" figure. Walk through the house at 1 pm on a regular weekday and add up everything that is running. ACs, fridges, fans, water motor when it kicks on, the inverter chargers in the bedrooms. Most Lahore homes that think they have a 10 kW load actually have 3 to 5 kW running at peak sun hours. The rest is evening use.

Size the panel array to roughly 120 to 140 percent of that midday load. That gives a buffer for cloudy days and for slightly higher loads on the hottest afternoons. Add a battery sized for the early evening shoulder (sunset to 10 pm), which is typically 3 to 6 kWh of usable storage for a 10 marla home.

A worked example: Johar Town household

Consider a family in Johar Town. Three bedrooms, two ACs (one 1.5-ton, one 1-ton), the standard mix of fridge, washing machine, and a water motor. Both parents work from home, so daytime occupancy is high. Monthly bill: PKR 28,000 average across the year, with a summer peak around PKR 38,000.

A walk-through at 1 pm in May shows the load mix:

Appliance	Running power
1.5-ton inverter AC (living room)	1.2 kW
1-ton inverter AC (bedroom)	0.8 kW
Fridge + inverter fridge	0.4 kW
Ceiling fans (5 running)	0.4 kW
Two laptops, router, LEDs	0.3 kW
Water motor (intermittent)	0.9 kW (5 min on, 25 min off)
Daytime peak load	~4 kW

The right-sized system for this household is roughly 5 kW of panels paired with a 5 kVA hybrid inverter and a 5 kWh lithium battery. The all-in cost in 2026 lands in the PKR 900,000 to PKR 1,200,000 range depending on brand choices.

What this system does in practice. During the day, the panels run the house and trickle-charge the battery. The house imports almost nothing from LESCO between 9 am and 5 pm. From 5 pm to 10 pm, the battery handles the evening load (fans, lights, one AC, the TV, the kitchen). After 10 pm, the system falls back to the grid for the late-night AC use.

Bill outcome. A PKR 28,000 average bill drops to something in the PKR 7,000 to PKR 10,000 range. Annual saving: PKR 220,000 to PKR 250,000. Payback: roughly four to five years. Net metering is not part of this calculation. The system is not exporting.

Where the savings actually come from

The mental shift that helps most is to stop thinking of solar as "selling electricity to LESCO" and start thinking of it as "not buying electricity from LESCO."

Every kWh the panels make and the house consumes is a kWh that does not show up on the bill at PKR 50+ per unit. Every kWh the battery stores and uses in the evening is another kWh that does not show up at the higher evening-slab rate. Stack enough of those together and the savings add up fast, even with zero export revenue.

For the Johar Town example above, the system generates about 700 to 900 units a month in summer and 400 to 500 units in winter. If 85 to 90 percent of that gets self-consumed (a realistic figure for a house with daytime occupancy and a small battery), the household avoids buying roughly 7,000 to 8,500 units a year at retail. At a blended retail tariff of PKR 50 per unit, that is PKR 350,000 to PKR 425,000 of avoided cost per year. Some of that is offset by a small import-only bill of PKR 80,000 to PKR 120,000. Net saving stays in the PKR 230,000 to PKR 300,000 range. None of it depends on a buyback rate.

Is a battery now mandatory?

No. It depends on the daytime usage pattern.

A house where most consumption happens between 8 am and 6 pm (work-from-home family, full-time grandparent at home, a salon or shop) can run a no-battery, on-grid solar setup and still save 60 to 70 percent of its bill. The solar electricity is being used as it is made. There is little surplus to store. A 5 kW on-grid system on this kind of property pays back in three to four years.

A house where most consumption happens between 7 pm and midnight (working couple, school-age kids who use AC at night) does need a battery to capture useful value. Without a battery, the solar generation overlaps poorly with the load, and the policy change makes that mismatch expensive.

The honest test is this. Pull out the LESCO bill. If it has time-of-use data, check what percentage of consumption is off-peak versus peak. If it does not, do a quick estimate of how many hours the ACs run during the day versus the night. Anything past 60 percent night use justifies a battery. Anything below it is a candidate for on-grid only.

Net metering is dead, but on-grid still has a role

The post-policy noise has made many people assume on-grid solar without a battery is now pointless. That is not quite right. On-grid solar is still the cheapest form of installed solar per kW, and for the right customer it still pays back quickly.

The customer it fits is the one whose load profile matches the sun profile. Examples that come up repeatedly:

A small office or clinic open from 9 am to 6 pm. Computers, lights, a couple of ACs, all running during peak generation hours. Self-consumption rates often exceed 90 percent. A 10 kW grid-tied system on a clinic in Garden Town pays back in three to four years even today.

A retail shop or salon on Y Block or Liberty. Daytime hours, AC running through the afternoon, lights and equipment running all day. Similar profile to the clinic. The battery would barely cycle, so skipping it saves PKR 400,000 to PKR 700,000 on the project.

A school. Sun hours match school hours almost perfectly. Several schools in Lahore that installed grid-tied in 2024 to 2025 are still hitting their original payback projections, untouched by the policy change.

For these customers, the question is not "hybrid or nothing." It is "right-sized on-grid, no battery, no net metering registration." Cheapest fit. Fastest payback. No complicated DISCO paperwork.

A short FAQ

Will my solar system shut off during load-shedding if I do not have a battery?

Yes, if it is a pure grid-tied system. Anti-islanding protection is mandatory for safety (so line workers do not get shocked by your panels feeding the grid during an outage). A hybrid inverter with a battery is the only way to keep solar running during a load-shed.

Can I add a battery later if I install grid-tied now?

Only if you bought a hybrid inverter to begin with. A pure on-grid inverter cannot have a battery added. If there is any chance of adding a battery in the next five years, spend a little more now and get a hybrid inverter (Growatt SPH, Solis Hybrid, Huawei SUN2000 hybrid).

Do I need to register with LESCO if I am not exporting?

Technically, a parallel connection with the grid still requires DISCO concurrence even under the new rules. Many homes run "behind the meter" with a hybrid inverter set to zero export, which is the practical approach for self-consumption setups. Talk to the installer about which approach makes sense given your sanctioned load and the local DISCO's current stance.

What if my generation exceeds my consumption on some days?

A hybrid inverter can be configured for zero export, in which case it throttles down rather than pushing back to the grid. The "wasted" generation is small (the system produces less on the few days when the battery is full and the house is not using much), and the cost of that loss is far less than the cost of registering, paying interconnection fees, and exporting at PKR 11.

Is roof-top space wasted if I size smaller?

Slightly, but the alternative (oversizing and dumping to the grid at PKR 11) costs more. If the goal is to maximise return on investment per rupee spent, right-sizing wins. If the goal is to make the most electricity per square foot of roof, the calculus is different but probably no longer worth the extra investment.