Commercial Solar in Punjab: How the Calculation Differs

When a shop owner and a homeowner ask us about solar in the same week, they get different answers. A business calculation works differently from a home one.

No free units to work around

Homes in Punjab get 300 free units a month. Commercial connections don’t, and are billed under Non-Residential Supply from the very first unit. On its own that sounds like a disadvantage, but it removes the biggest complication in sizing home solar: there’s no need to first work out whether solar is worth it under the free-units line. Every solar unit a business uses comes straight off a bill that was never free.

No subsidy, but daytime use works for you

PM Surya Ghar is written for homes and housing societies, so commercial and industrial connections pay the full system cost with no central subsidy. What makes up for it is daytime use. A shop, office, clinic or school that runs most of its load in daylight uses its solar power as it is generated, and a unit used that way is worth more than a surplus unit exported to the grid under net metering.

How a business system is sized

Home systems are usually sized around the 300-unit free-usage line. Businesses have no such line, so the system is sized to daytime consumption and capped at the sanctioned load or contract demand. We ask for twelve months of bills, because a business’s use often swings more with the seasons than a household’s does. Think of a shop’s air conditioning in summer, or a school that uses almost nothing through the holidays.

Industrial connections

Manufacturing units are on Punjab’s own subsidised industrial energy tariff, a different rate structure from Non-Residential Supply, usually with fixed-charge waivers for the smaller industrial categories. An industrial solar quote starts from that tariff.

Payback for your business

There’s no single payback period for commercial solar, just as there isn’t one for homes. It depends on your tariff category, how much of your load runs during the day, and the system size your sanctioned load allows. Send us twelve months of bills and we’ll work through your actual numbers.