Households · Connected load & monthly units
Electricity Load Estimator
Add your appliances and see connected load, units a day and units a month — sorted so the ones actually costing you money come first. Enter the hours each appliance is drawing power, not the hours it is plugged in; that one distinction is what separates a useful estimate from a wild one.
| Appliance | Watts | How many | Hours / day |
|---|---|---|---|
What is actually costing you
Appliance by appliance, biggest first
| Appliance | Watts | How many | Hours / day | Units / month | Share | Cost |
|---|
An estimate of units, not a bill. The bill on top of those units depends on your tariff slab, fuel price adjustment, quarterly adjustment, electricity duty, GST, TV fee, fixed charges and withholding tax, which differ by DISCO and by month.
Reading the numbers
Four things that make the estimate wrong
- Nameplate is a ceiling, not an average. The figure on the rating plate is the maximum the appliance can draw, not what it averages. A refrigerator's compressor cycles on and off, so its plate rating over 24 hours would badly overstate the units. Enter the hours the appliance is genuinely drawing power, not the hours it is switched on.
- Inverter appliances modulate. Inverter air conditioners and refrigerators vary their draw continuously. Treating them at full nameplate for the full period overstates consumption, often by a third or more.
- Connected load is not peak demand. Connected load is the sum of everything you own. It is not your peak demand, because you never run all of it at once. Sanctioned load on your meter agreement is a separate figure again, and exceeding it is a billing and safety question, not a units question.
- Standby adds up. Devices left on standby still draw power. A television, a set-top box and a WiFi router together can account for a noticeable share of a small household's monthly units.
Reading the result
Find the two or three that matter
In almost every Pakistani household the bill is dominated by a handful of appliances — typically air conditioning, water heating and a water pump — while a long list of small devices contributes very little between them.
That is what the sorted table is for. Switching off phone chargers changes almost nothing; running the air conditioner one degree warmer or one hour less changes the bill.
Cross the result against a slab boundary
Because residential tariff charges the reached slab's rate on every unit, knowing your monthly total is most useful when you compare it against the boundary above and below you. A household sitting just over a boundary can save disproportionately by trimming the largest consumer slightly.
The electricity bill calculator shows where those boundaries fall on your tariff.
Efficiency claims are worth checking against your own numbers
An inverter air conditioner genuinely uses less than a conventional one, but the saving depends on how you run it — short bursts at a low setting undo much of the advantage. Enter your real hours and a realistic average wattage rather than the brochure figure, and the comparison becomes useful.
Where this stops
This estimates units. What those units cost depends on your slab, your DISCO and the adjustments in that month, which is a separate calculation.
FAQs
Electricity Load Estimator FAQs
How do I turn watts into units?
A unit is a kilowatt-hour. Multiply the wattage by the number of appliances and by the hours a day it draws power, then divide by 1,000 for units a day. A 1,200 W air conditioner run 8 hours a day is 1,200 x 8 / 1,000 = 9.6 units a day, about 288 units a month. That single appliance can be more than the rest of a small house put together.
My refrigerator is on 24 hours. Should I enter 24?
No, and this is the commonest mistake. The compressor cycles: it runs, reaches temperature, stops, and starts again. Over a day it is genuinely drawing power for something in the order of 8 to 10 hours, not 24. Entering 24 at the nameplate rating roughly triples what the fridge actually costs you.
What about an inverter air conditioner?
An inverter unit varies its draw continuously rather than switching between full power and off. Held at nameplate for the whole period it will be overstated, often by a third or more. If you want a closer figure, enter fewer effective hours, or a lower average wattage, and say so to yourself rather than treating the result as exact.
Is connected load the same as my sanctioned load?
No. Connected load is the sum of everything you own, which you never run at once. Peak demand is the most you actually draw at any moment. Sanctioned load is the figure on your meter agreement with the DISCO. All three are different numbers, and exceeding your sanctioned load is a billing and safety question rather than a units question.
Why does the cost look different from my bill?
Because a single rate per unit is a simplification. Pakistani residential tariff is slabbed, and much of it charges the rate of the slab you land in on every unit, which is why one extra unit can raise the whole bill. On top of the energy charge sit fuel price adjustment, quarterly adjustment, electricity duty, GST, TV fee, fixed charges and withholding tax. The Electricity Bill Calculator handles all of those.
Where do the wattages come from?
They are typical figures for appliances common in Pakistan, used only to pre-fill the form. They are not fixed by any authority and they are not a specification. The rating plate on your own appliance beats anything here, and every wattage on this page is editable for that reason.
Does standby power matter?
More than people expect in a small household. A television, a set-top box, a WiFi router and an inverter left on standby run continuously, and 50 W held for 24 hours is 36 units a month on its own. Add them as rows with their standby wattage.
Can I use this to size a solar system?
It gives you the daily units, which is the starting point, but sizing also needs your consumption pattern through the day, roof orientation and shading, and what you want the system to cover. Use the daily units figure as an input to the Solar Panel Payback Calculator rather than as an answer in itself.
Does this work for a shop or an office?
The arithmetic is the same, but the tariff is not. Commercial connections are billed on their own tariff with their own fixed charges, and many are on a time-of-use meter where peak and off-peak units are priced separately. The units this page gives you are still valid; the cost line will not be.
Related tools
Now turn those units into a bill
Slabs, fuel price adjustment, electricity duty, GST, TV fee and withholding tax, in the order they stack.
Open the Electricity Bill Calculator