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Solar Load Calculator for Home

Build your home load appliance by appliance. This solar load calculator totals your connected load in watts and daily consumption in kWh, then recommends the solar system and inverter size to carry it, including for an AC or fridge.

Daily units = sum of (appliance watts × hours × quantity) ÷ 1,000. A typical 2BHK uses 8 to 12 units a day. A 1.5 ton inverter AC (about 1.2 kW) running 8 hours adds 9 to 10 units a day, which needs about 2.5 kW of panels (5 × 550 W) on its own.

Add Your Appliances

Wattages are realistic Indian averages. Set the quantity and daily hours for each appliance you use.

Your Load Summary

–
total connected load
Daily consumption–
Monthly consumption–
Recommended solar system–
Suggested inverter rating–
Your appliances, our averages: real wattages and running hours differ by model and habit. Share this load list with a local solar contractor to fix the actual system size and price.

Built and maintained by Solar Calculators Pro · Typical wattages and how load becomes kW

Typical Appliance Wattages in Indian Homes

ApplianceTypical WattageDaily UseDaily Units
Ceiling fan75 W12 hrs0.9
LED lights (8)80 W6 hrs0.5
Refrigerator150 W (running)8 hrs compressor1.2
LED TV100 W6 hrs0.6
1.5 ton inverter AC1,200 W8 hrs9.6
Washing machine500 W1 hr0.5
Geyser2,000 W30 min1.0
EV charger (home)3,000 W3 hrs9.0

Notice how ACs and EV chargers dominate: one 1.5 ton AC uses more energy than the rest of a typical home combined. Load calculation matters most for exactly these homes.

Solar Panels Needed for Common Appliances

Panel capacity needed to cover each appliance's daily units on its own, at 4.8 peak sun hours (panel watts = daily units ÷ (4.8 × 0.8) × 1,000):

ApplianceDaily unitsSolar panels needed
Refrigerator1.2about 310 W
Ceiling fan (12 hrs)0.9about 230 W
LED TV (6 hrs)0.6about 160 W
1 ton inverter AC (8 hrs)7.2about 1.9 kW
1.5 ton inverter AC (8 hrs)9.6about 2.5 kW
Geyser (30 min)1.0about 260 W
EV charger (3 hrs)9.0about 2.3 kW

Add these up for your whole home, or let the calculator above do it. Panels cover daily energy; running an AC at night or in a power cut also needs a battery and a big enough inverter.

Connected Load vs Daily Consumption

Two numbers come out of a load calculation and they answer different questions. Connected load (watts) is everything that could run at once; it sizes your inverter and backup. Daily consumption (kWh) is energy actually used; it sizes your solar array. A home can have a 4 kW connected load but only 8 kWh daily consumption, needing just a 2 kW solar system with a 5 kVA inverter. Size the inverter precisely with the solar inverter size calculator and batteries for the backup share of the load with the solar battery calculator.

Before You Add Appliances: Count What Actually Runs

The two easiest ways to wreck a load calculation are counting nameplate watts and counting ownership instead of usage. A fridge is plugged in 24 hours but compresses about 8; an inverter AC rated 1,500W averages nearer 1,200W once the room cools; a geyser runs 30 minutes, not the whole morning. The defaults in this tool already use these effective figures, so resist the urge to "correct" them upward. Do the opposite check instead: walk through an actual weekday evening and note what runs simultaneously, because that simultaneous figure, not the sum of everything you own, is what sizes the inverter.

A Patna Household, Appliance by Appliance

A Patna home runs 3 fans (12 hours each), 6 LED lights (6 hours), a fridge, a TV (5 hours) and one 1.5 ton inverter AC for 6 summer hours. Connected load: about 1,735W. Daily energy: roughly 12 kWh, of which the AC alone is 7.2. That is ~359 units a month, pointing to a 3.5 kW solar system and a 3,500 VA inverter (the AC plus fridge starting together is the sizing event). Note how one appliance dominates: remove the AC and the same home needs barely 1.5 kW, which is why load calculation beats guessing.

Turning Your Load Numbers Into a System

  • Monthly units → system size: carry the monthly figure into the system size calculator with your real city for an exact kW.
  • Connected load → inverter: the simultaneous-run subset of your load sizes the inverter in the inverter size calculator.
  • Backup subset → battery: mark what must survive a power cut and size storage for only that subset in the solar battery calculator; whole-home backup triples battery budgets.
  • Future loads now: add the planned EV or second AC today; retro-fitting capacity costs more than provisioning it.

Load Figures People Get Wrong

  • Using nameplate watts for compressor appliances. It double-counts ACs and fridges and oversizes everything downstream by 30 to 50%.
  • Forgetting the pump. A 750W water pump running an hour a day is invisible until the borewell runs during a power cut on an undersized inverter.
  • Averaging away summer. If the AC runs 10 hours in May and 0 in December, size energy for the year but the inverter for the May evening.
  • Adding "someday" appliances everywhere. Provision future loads in the array, but sizing the battery for a hypothetical second AC wastes ₹50,000 today.

From Appliance List to System Size

Connected load (W) = Σ Quantity × Wattage
Daily units (kWh) = Σ Quantity × Wattage × Hours ÷ 1000
Solar kW = Monthly units ÷ (4.8 sun hrs × 30 × 0.8)

Wattages and hours we use

  • Wattages: realistic running averages; compressor appliances (AC, fridge) use effective duty-cycle figures rather than nameplate peaks
  • Sun hours: a 4.8-hour planning value; for city-specific sizing continue to the system size calculator
  • Inverter: load ÷ 0.8 power factor with 20% headroom, rounded up to standard VA ratings

Load Calculation Questions

How do I calculate my home load for a solar system?+
List every appliance with its wattage and quantity, then add them up for connected load and multiply by daily hours for consumption. This calculator does it with realistic Indian wattages: a typical 2BHK lands around 1.5 to 2.5 kW connected load and 8 to 12 units a day.
What load can a 3kW solar system handle?+
A 3 kW system generates about 12 units a day, covering fans, lights, fridge, TV and a few hours of one AC. But instantaneous load depends on the inverter, not the panels: a 3 kW hybrid inverter can run about 2,400 W of appliances at once.
What is the difference between kW and kVA in load calculation?+
kW is real power consumed; kVA is apparent power the inverter must supply. Home appliances average a 0.8 power factor, so a 2,000 W load needs about 2,500 VA (2.5 kVA) of inverter capacity. This calculator applies that conversion automatically.
Should I include the geyser and microwave in solar load?+
Include them in consumption, but think twice about backup. Heating appliances draw 1.5 to 2 kW each and drain batteries fast. Most homes run geysers on grid or solar-direct daytime power and exclude them from battery backup.
How much load does an EV add to a home solar system?+
A home EV charger draws about 3 kW and adds roughly 9 units per full charging session. Charging an EV three times a week adds around 110 units a month, roughly 1 kW of extra solar capacity worth planning for.
Why does my electricity bill not match my calculated load?+
Duty cycles. A fridge is plugged in 24 hours but compresses only about 8; an inverter AC throttles down after cooling. The defaults here use effective hours, but tune them to your habits for the closest match to your bill.
How many units does a 1.5 ton AC consume per day?+
A modern inverter AC averages about 1.2 kW while running, so 8 hours costs roughly 9 to 10 units a day in peak summer. Older fixed-speed units consume 20 to 30% more for the same cooling.
What is the average home load in India?+
A non-AC household typically runs 400 to 700W connected load and 4 to 6 units a day. Each 1.5 ton AC adds about 1.2 kW of load and 7 to 10 daily units in season, which is why AC ownership is the main driver of system size.
How much solar panel is required for a 1.5 ton AC?+
It depends on how long the AC runs. To cover about 8 hours a day (9 to 10 units), plan about 2.5 kW of panels, which is 5 panels of 550 W. If the AC runs only in sunny daytime hours, about 1.5 kW of panels can carry it directly. Add this to your base household load when sizing the system.
What is the price of a solar system to run a 1.5 ton AC?+
To cover about 8 hours of AC use a day, a 2.5 kW on-grid system costs about ₹1,45,000 before subsidy and about ₹76,000 after the ₹69,000 PM Surya Ghar subsidy. For daytime-only use, a 1.5 kW system costs about ₹87,000, or ₹42,000 after the ₹45,000 subsidy. Running the AC in a power cut needs a hybrid system with a battery, which costs more.

Size the Rest of Your System