Two things are both true in Pakistan right now: grid reliability is still inconsistent in a lot of areas, and the new net billing rules pay noticeably less for exported solar power than the old net metering system did. Put those two facts together and the smartest solar strategy for 2026 looks a bit different than it did a couple of years ago.

The old logic: export as much as possible

Under net metering, every unit you sent to the grid was worth the same as a unit you bought from it. That made exporting a perfectly good use of surplus solar power — there was no financial reason to prefer using your own electricity over selling it back.

The new logic: use it before you lose the value

Under net billing, a unit you consume directly still offsets the full retail rate you'd otherwise pay — commonly in the range of Rs. 40–60+ per unit depending on your slab. A unit you export instead earns the much lower buyback rate. That gap means self-consumption is now worth several times more than export, unit for unit.

In practical terms, that changes which habits actually save you money:

  • Shift heavy loads to daylight hours. Running your washing machine, water pump, geyser, and AC pre-cooling during peak sun hours means that electricity is used directly rather than exported cheaply and bought back expensively at night.
  • Consider a battery, even a modest one. Storing midday surplus to cover the evening peak — when household consumption is often highest — captures value that would otherwise be exported at a fraction of its worth.
  • Size closer to your actual load. A system that closely matches your consumption produces less "surplus" to worry about in the first place, simplifying the whole equation.

Where load shedding still fits into this

None of this changes the other reason most of our clients go solar in the first place: keeping the lights, fans, and fridge running through an outage. A hybrid system with even a modest battery bank handles that independently of the net billing conversation — it's really a separate value driver, and one that's arguably become more important as backup power, not just a bill-reduction tool.

Bottom line: if you're planning a new system in 2026, think about it as "how do I use most of what I generate" rather than "how big can I go and export the rest." It changes both the ideal system size and whether a battery makes sense for you.