Industrial · Vehari Industrial, Punjab
Simta Foods — 1 MW
A megawatt on a food plant that runs its load through daylight — and 77 days of monitoring data, including the twelve days the inverters were off.
- Recorded generation
- 68,317 kWh
- Best recorded day
- 1,884 kWh
- Monthly saving
- PKR 1.9M
- Total project cost
- PKR 24.96M
- Payback
- About 14 months
9 May – 21 Jul 2026, from the plant monitoring export
20 July 2026
Client's own figure, against their pre-solar industrial tariff
Equipment invoiced at PKR 23,997,756, plus the 4% fee
Total project cost divided by the monthly saving above
Measured output
What the plant actually produced
This is not a simulation. Every bar below is a day recorded by the plant's own monitoring system, transcribed from the generation report without adjustment — including the days the inverters were off.
- Period
- 9 May 2026 — 21 Jul 2026
- Source
- Plant monitoring system export, consolidated in the YTECH SOLAR generation performance report
- Last verified
- 21 Jul 2026
Recorded generation
68,317kWh
Across the full reporting period
Average per day
887kWh
Over days with recorded data
Days of data
77
Including the days output was zero
- Recorded · 65 days
- Output as logged by the monitoring system.
- Inverter off · 12 days
- Genuine downtime. Counted as zero, not dropped.
- No data · 7 days
- Plant running, nothing logged. Unknown, not zero.
On the gaps in this data
Twenty-seven days in the period carry no generation figure: eight predate commissioning, seven in late May were not recorded by the monitoring system, and twelve are genuine inverter downtime. The averages above are calculated across days with recorded data only, and the downtime is counted rather than dropped.
| Month | Total yield | Avg/day | Best day | Downtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | 20,569 kWh | 1,286 kWh | 1,470 kWh · 20 May | 1–8 pre-commissioning; 25–31 no data recorded |
| June 2026 | 25,730 kWh | 858 kWh | 1,416 kWh · 29 Jun | 2 days inverter off (8th, 26th) |
| July 2026 | 22,018 kWh | 710 kWh | 1,884 kWh · 20 Jul | 10 days inverter off (22nd–31st) |
How it was done
The engineering decisions
What the site actually needed
Simta Foods runs a continuous-process food plant in Vehari Industrial Estate. The thing that made it a good solar site is not the roof — it is the load curve. Machinery runs through the working day, which means the units generated between roughly 9am and 4pm are consumed on site rather than exported. Under net billing that distinction is the whole economic case: self-consumed units are worth full industrial tariff, exported ones are bought back at about a third of it. I sized the array against the daytime draw, not against the available roof area.
Why these panels and these inverters
I specified 594 JA 715W N-Type bifacial modules. Bifacial earns its premium here because the mounting height and the roof surface give the rear face something to collect — on a low-clearance install I would not have specified them and would have said so. N-Type was chosen for its lower temperature coefficient: Vehari summers sit well above the 25°C at which panels are rated, and P-Type loses more output in exactly the conditions this site generates most. Two SOLIS 125 kW inverters rather than one larger unit, so a single inverter fault costs half the plant rather than all of it.
What the data says — including the bad days
From commissioning on 9 May through 21 July the plant recorded 68,317 kWh. The best day was 1,884 kWh on 20 July. There were also twelve days when the inverters were off: two in June, and the ten days from 22 to 31 July. That downtime is in the chart on this page rather than edited out of it, because a performance report that only shows the peaks is a brochure. The monthly averages tell the same story honestly — July averaged 710 kWh/day precisely because those ten days are counted.
What it cost, and what I was paid
The equipment invoiced at PKR 23,997,756. The largest line by far is the modules at PKR 16.67M; the two inverters were PKR 2.12M, the aluminium monorail structure PKR 2.49M, 4,000 metres of KUKA DC cable PKR 920,000, earthing and protection PKR 677,408, and installation and commissioning PKR 1,125,481. Every panel, inverter, cable and clamp was bought at wholesale and invoiced to Simta Foods in the supplier's own name. They hold the original invoices. I took no margin on any of it. My fee was 4% of that total, invoiced after the system was commissioned and generating — which on this project meant after 9 May 2026. Had it not run, I would not have been paid.
What it pays back in — the honest number
PKR 24.96M all in, against a saving the client puts at PKR 1.9M a month, is a payback of about fourteen months. I have seen this project described as paying back in under eight, and it does not: that figure came from an estimated cost rather than the invoice. Fourteen months on a megawatt is still an unusually good industrial return, and it has the advantage of surviving the arithmetic when someone checks it. The measured generation supports the same range — 887 kWh a day averaged across the recorded period, which at the tariff this plant was paying lands between fourteen and nineteen months depending on how much of it is self-consumed.
Specification
Why this equipment, on this site
Every line in the bill of materials was a decision with a reason. These are the ones worth explaining.
- Modules
594 × JA JAM72D40 715W
N-Type bifacial. Lower temperature coefficient for Vehari summer conditions.
- Inverters
2 × SOLIS S5-GC125K
Split across two units so a single fault costs half the plant, not all of it.
- Structure
Aluminium rail
Corrosion behaviour over a 25-year module life, on a food-processing site.
- Configuration
On-grid, no storage
Daytime load matches the generation window; storage would not have earned its cost.
What I was paid
The same terms as every project on this site
Equipment bought at wholesale and invoiced to the client in the supplier's own name. No margin taken on any of it. My fee is 4% of total project cost, invoiced once the system is commissioned and generating.
The client holds every original invoice. They can check what a panel or an inverter costs in the Lahore market, and I expect them to — the model only works if the paperwork survives that.
Project record
- Commissioned
- —
- System type
- On-grid
- Structure
- Aluminium rail structure
- Page updated
- 4 Aug 2026
Published with the client's written consent. Figures attributed to the client are marked as theirs.
The reasoning
Why this system was designed the way it was
The decisions on this project follow rules that apply to most sites in Pakistan. I have written them up in full — the sizing arithmetic under net billing, what payback really looks like against measured data, and how to check a quotation before you sign it.
More delivered work
Other projects
Hassan Flour Mill · DG Khan
500 kW- PANELS
- 720 × Canadian 695W N-Type TOPCon
- INVERTERS
- 4 × Huawei SUN2000-115KTL 115 kW
- COMMISSIONED
- DEC 2024
- MY FEE
- 4%, on commissioning
Half a megawatt squeezed onto a constrained site by deliberately accepting a shading loss — and gaining 12,000 units a year by doing it.
Hashim Textile · Lahore
177 kW- PANELS
- 288 × Longi 615W N-Type Bifacial
- INVERTERS
- 1 × Huawei SUN2000-115KTL 115 kW
- COMMISSIONED
- —
- MY FEE
- 4%, on commissioning
The clearest EPC+ comparison on this site: 177 kW delivered at PKR 56 a watt, against the PKR 62–72 the same job costs bought the conventional way.