Peak Hours for Electricity in Pakistan: When to Use Less Power

What time-of-use billing is

A time-of-use meter records not just how much electricity you used but when. Units consumed during peak hours are billed at a higher rate than units consumed off-peak, because meeting demand at the evening peak requires the most expensive generation on the system to run.

Peak hours in Pakistan are typically set around the evening, commonly in the region of 6 PM to 10 PM, and the window shifts between summer and winter because the demand curve does. The exact hours are set by NEPRA and printed on bills for connections that are metered this way.

Reading a time-of-use bill

A TOU bill shows two consumption figures instead of one: peak units and off-peak units, each with its own rate. The two are added to give total consumption, which is what determines your slab position — so shifting usage changes the rate you pay but not which slab table applies.

1. 1

   Find the split

   Look for separate peak and off-peak unit counts in the consumption block. If there is only one number, you are not on TOU.

2. 2

   Compare the two rates

   The gap between them is what shifting usage is worth. A large gap makes rescheduling heavy appliances worthwhile; a small one does not.

3. 3

   Identify your heavy loads

   Only large, schedulable loads matter — water heating, washing, ironing, pumping. Moving a phone charger achieves nothing.

What is actually worth moving

• Washing machines and dishwashers. Entirely schedulable, and among the larger intermittent loads in a house.
• Electric water heating. If the geyser has a timer, setting it to heat outside the peak window is one of the largest single shifts available.
• Ironing and other batch chores. Doing them in the afternoon or late evening rather than at 8 PM costs nothing in convenience.
• Water pumping to a rooftop tank, where the tank holds enough that timing is flexible.

Why the system charges more at peak

Generation is dispatched cheapest first. Meeting the evening peak means starting the most expensive plants on the system for a few hours, and building capacity that sits idle the rest of the day. Peak pricing passes that cost to the consumption causing it, and flattening the peak reduces the capacity the country has to build and pay for.

It also interacts with rooftop solar. Solar generates during the day and nothing at the evening peak, which is part of why the value of a solar system depends heavily on how much of your consumption is daytime.

Questions