NEA Time-of-Day (ToD) Tariff: Peak, Off-Peak & Normal Hours Explained

The Time-of-Day (ToD) tariff, often written "TOD tariff", is a pricing system in which the rate a consumer pays per unit (kilowatt-hour) of electricity depends on the hour of the day it is used. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the state-owned utility established in 2042 BS (1985 AD), divides the day into three billing windows: peak, off-peak and normal (also called "other") hours. The rates for each window are fixed by the Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC), the independent regulator created under the Electricity Regulatory Commission Act, 2074 (2017), which approves NEA's consumer tariff schedule.

The logic is straightforward: electricity is scarcest and most expensive to supply in the evening, when millions of households switch on lights, televisions, rice cookers and heaters at the same time. Nepal's grid is dominated by run-of-river hydropower, so supply cannot easily ramp up on demand, and NEA has historically imported power from India at market prices to cover the evening peak in the dry winter months. Demand keeps climbing: NEA figures for fiscal year 2081/82 (2024/25) record a system peak of about 2,901 MW on 18 Asar 2082 (2 July 2025), of which 2,214 MW was domestic consumption and 687 MW was exported to India. Charging more at peak and much less overnight nudges large consumers to shift load into hours when the system has spare capacity.

It is important to distinguish ToD billing from the ordinary domestic tariff. Most Nepali households are billed on a flat block (slab) structure, where the per-unit price rises with total monthly consumption regardless of when the units were used. ToD billing, by contrast, applies to consumers whose meters can record consumption by time band — mainly industries, large commercial customers, electric-vehicle charging stations and irrigation systems — and it is the billing model that NEA's smart-meter rollout is designed to extend.

Under the ERC-approved schedule in force (effective 1 Mangsir 2078, 17 November 2021), NEA's ToD windows are consistent across consumer categories. Peak hours run from 5:00 PM to 11:00 PM (17:00–23:00), covering the evening surge in household demand. Off-peak hours run from 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM (23:00–05:00), the overnight trough when national demand is lowest. The remaining twelve hours, 5:00 AM to 5:00 PM (05:00–17:00), are billed as normal hours at a rate close to the category's standard energy charge.

Older NEA schedules used slightly different windows — peak from 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM, off-peak from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM and normal from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM — and some secondary sources still reproduce those times. The 5 PM–11 PM peak definition dates from the tariff overhaul the ERC approved in June 2020 (Asar 2077) and was retained in the Mangsir 2078 (November 2021) revision, so always read the window printed on your own tariff schedule or bill.

NEA's ToD schedule is seasonal because Nepal's hydropower output is seasonal. The tariff defines a wet season from Baishakh through Mangsir (roughly mid-April to mid-December), when monsoon-swollen rivers keep run-of-river plants generating near capacity, and a dry season from Poush through Chaitra (roughly mid-December to mid-April), when river flows — and domestic generation — fall sharply and NEA leans on imports from India.

In the wet season all three ToD bands apply, including the deeply discounted off-peak rate. NEA frequently has surplus energy on wet-season nights, and cheap off-peak power is a way to sell electricity that might otherwise be spilled. In the dry season the published tables drop the off-peak column altogether: consumption between 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM is simply billed at the normal-hour rate, while the peak premium remains. In other words, the overnight discount is a wet-season benefit only.

The electric-vehicle charging-station schedule illustrates the swing. In the wet season a charging station pays about Rs 11.20 per unit at peak, Rs 10.10 in normal hours and only Rs 4.45 per unit off-peak; in the dry season the same station pays Rs 11.20 at peak and Rs 10.10 for all other hours, including overnight. A unit consumed at 1:00 AM therefore costs less than half as much in Shrawan (July–August) as it does in Magh (January–February).

ToD metering is compulsory for consumers who take supply at 11 kV or above — effectively all medium and large industries, big commercial buildings, bulk suppliers and community distribution systems. These "demand" customers pay a two-part bill: a monthly demand charge per kVA of recorded maximum demand, plus energy charges split across the three ToD bands. Dedicated EV charging stations and battery-swap facilities are also billed on ToD schedules, as are irrigation and drinking-water systems fitted with ToD meters.

Representative per-unit energy rates from the schedule applied from Mangsir 2078 (mid-November 2021) show how wide the spread is between bands and seasons.

These figures come from the consumer tariff the ERC fixed in Kartik 2078 (late October 2021), and the commission has kept the base consumer schedule broadly unchanged since, despite periodic NEA proposals to revise it. Exact rates differ by category and connection voltage — 400 V, 11 kV, 33 kV, 66 kV and 132 kV lines each have their own line in the tables — so consumers should confirm the current figure for their category on nea.org.np or in the ERC tariff order before making investment decisions.

A ToD meter is an electronic meter with multiple registers, each of which accumulates units during a defined time window. When the meter is read, the bill shows separate unit totals for peak, off-peak and normal hours, and each total is multiplied by its own rate before demand charges and service charges are added. NEA has required such meters for 11 kV-and-above consumers for years, and three-phase ToD meters (whole-current or CT-operated) are standard for large connections.

Smart meters take this further. Under its Smart Metering Project, NEA is installing advanced meters that record consumption in short intervals and report it automatically over a communication network, enabling remote reading, prepaid recharging, outage detection and time-differentiated billing without a meter reader. An Asian Development Bank roadmap published in December 2018 sketched a path to roughly five million smart meters by 2025, but actual progress has been slower: about 52,000 smart meters had been installed in Kathmandu's Ratnapark and Maharajgunj distribution-centre areas by mid-2021, the first phase targeted around 100,000 valley connections, and follow-on tenders covered several hundred thousand more units against NEA's customer base of 5.71 million (fiscal year 2081/82).

Crucially, having a smart meter at home does not automatically put you on a ToD tariff today. Smart connections were initially limited to three-phase and ToD customers and are now being extended to single-phase households, but ordinary domestic consumers continue to be billed on the slab system until the ERC approves a household ToD schedule. Policy is moving in that direction: the federal budget for FY 2082/83 (2025/26), presented on 15 Jestha 2082 (29 May 2025), announced that electricity tariffs for industrial and domestic consumers will vary by demand, consumption and time of use.

The savings principle is to move every flexible kilowatt-hour out of the 5–11 PM window and, in the wet season, into the 11 PM–5 AM window. For an industry on the 66 kV schedule, a unit consumed off-peak in the wet season costs Rs 5.40 against Rs 10.50 at peak — a saving of nearly half. Shifting 10,000 units a month from peak to off-peak at those rates trims about Rs 51,000 from the monthly energy bill, before any demand-charge effects.

Weigh the operational costs before re-scheduling: night shifts carry labour premiums, and some processes cannot be interrupted. But for storage-friendly loads — water, ice, heat, compressed air and charged batteries — the arithmetic is often compelling, which is exactly the demand-side response the ToD tariff is designed to produce.

Most residential bills in Nepal have nothing to do with ToD yet. A typical single-phase household is billed on ampere-capacity slabs: a subsidised "lifeline" consumer on a 5-ampere meter using up to 20 units a month pays only the Rs 30 minimum charge, mid-range consumption is priced at roughly Rs 8–9.50 per unit, and consumption above 250 units costs about Rs 11 per unit under the 2078 schedule. The price depends on how much you use in the month, not when you use it — which is why household bill calculators ask only for total units and amperage.

For anyone comparing the two systems: the slab tariff rewards using less overall, while the ToD tariff rewards using electricity at the right time. As smart meters spread, expect the ERC to publish household ToD options with cheaper overnight rates, following the model already applied to industry and EV charging. Because rates and windows can change with each tariff order, check erc.gov.np and nea.org.np for the schedule in force before relying on any specific figure.