By premises
Solar for an office
An office is a good match on weekdays and a poor one at weekends — five days of consumption against seven of generation. Air conditioning dominates the load and peaks with the sun, so a correctly sized array covers a large share of the working day directly.
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Air conditioning is the load, and it peaks helpfully
In most Pakistani offices cooling is the largest single consumer, and it rises through the day roughly in step with solar output. That alignment is unusually favourable — unlike a household evening peak, an office's biggest load happens exactly when the array is producing most.
The weekend gap
Two days a week the building is close to empty while the array produces normally. Across a year that is a substantial share of generation with nowhere to go. Net metering is what recovers it, which makes the application materially more valuable for an office than for premises trading seven days.
Three-phase and sanctioned load
Most offices sit on a three-phase connection, which affects inverter selection and how the system ties into the board, and the sanctioned load constrains what can be approved for net metering. Both belong in the survey rather than in a surprise later — a three-phase tie-in quoted as single-phase is a common source of scope creep.
What is worth backing up
Servers, the network, security systems and enough lighting to work by. Backing up the full cooling load is expensive and rarely justified; backing up the systems whose failure stops the office is. That split also keeps the bank within a size an office can sensibly finance.
Is solar worth installing on an office building?
Does solar cover office air conditioning?
During working hours, largely yes, given an adequately sized array — cooling load and generation peak together, which is the best alignment of any common load. What solar cannot do economically is run that cooling from a battery after hours, so evening or weekend AC use still draws from the grid.
Is the weekend generation wasted?
Without net metering, largely yes, and across a year it is a meaningful share. With net metering it becomes credit against weekday imports. This is why an office should treat the net-metering application as part of the project rather than an optional extra, and why the payback difference between having it and not is larger here.
We lease the floor. Can we still install?
Only with the building owner's agreement, since the roof is rarely the tenant's. In a multi-tenant building the practical route is usually a landlord-led installation serving common loads, or a hybrid inverter and battery inside your own premises for continuity without touching the roof.
Rather have it done?
Solar installation covers the survey, the panels, the mounting structure, DC and AC wiring, protection and commissioning. A 3kW on-grid system in Islamabad starts near PKR 350,000 complete, and the figure that matters is the one that includes structure and wiring rather than panels alone.
Solar panel supply and installation in Islamabad — prices and scope