Hyderabad is one of India's largest healthcare markets. The city hosts a dense concentration of corporate hospital chains, standalone multispeciality facilities, diagnostics centres, and nursing homes spread across areas like Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Secunderabad, Kukatpally, and the newer Kokapet and Nanakramguda corridors. These are large, power-intensive facilities. HVAC systems run continuously. Imaging equipment, OT suites, ICUs, sterilisation units, and data infrastructure draw significant loads at all hours of the day and night.

Until recently, electricity was billed on a flat rate basis for most of these facilities. That has changed.

What the ToD tariff means for a Hyderabad hospital

The Telangana Electricity Regulatory Commission (TGERC) introduced Time of Day (ToD) tariffs for HT consumers including hospitals, effective May 1, 2025. Under the current TGERC tariff order (TGERC ToD Order 2025-26), the pricing structure for HT consumers served by TSSPDCL is as follows:

Time slot Hours ToD adjustment

Off-peak (rebate) 10 PM to 6 AM Less ₹1.50 per unit

Standard hours 6 AM to 6 PM Base energy rate

Peak hours (surcharge) 6 PM to 10 PM Plus ₹1.00 per unit

For a hospital, the implications of this structure are direct and significant. The four hours between 6 PM and 10 PM are not low-activity hours. They are among the busiest of the day: evening OPD consultations, post-surgical monitoring, visiting hours, evening meals, and full HVAC load as the outdoor temperature is still high in Hyderabad's climate. Every unit consumed during this window now attracts an additional ₹1.00 per unit charge on top of the base energy rate.

Equally, the off-peak rebate of ₹1.50 per unit between 10 PM and 6 AM represents a significant saving opportunity for consumption that can be shifted or stored: pre-cooling HVAC loads, running sterilisation cycles, charging battery backup systems, and other non-time-critical processes that currently run on a convenience schedule rather than a tariff-optimised one.

What this looks like on a hospital electricity bill

Consider a 150-bed multispeciality hospital in Hyderabad with a contracted demand of 500 kVA and a monthly consumption of approximately 1,20,000 units. A reasonable estimate for the distribution of that consumption across time slots:

  • Standard hours (6 AM to 6 PM): approximately 60,000 units
  • Peak hours (6 PM to 10 PM): approximately 30,000 units
  • Off-peak hours (10 PM to 6 AM): approximately 30,000 units

Under the ToD structure, the peak-hour consumption of 30,000 units now attracts a surcharge of ₹1.00 per unit, adding ₹30,000 to the monthly bill relative to the flat-rate baseline. The off-peak rebate, if the hospital is already consuming 30,000 units at night, saves ₹45,000. But most hospitals are not currently optimising for the off-peak window. They are paying the peak surcharge without capturing the off-peak rebate, which means the net effect is a bill increase.

For larger hospitals with higher contracted demand and heavier evening loads, the peak-hour surcharge can add ₹75,000 to ₹1.5 lakh per month to the electricity bill.

Why hospitals cannot simply shift their peak-hour load

The standard response to a ToD surcharge in an industrial or commercial setting is to shift consumption: run heavy loads at night, defer non-critical operations to off-peak windows. For a factory, this is often feasible. For a hospital, it is structurally constrained.

Evening OPD hours cannot move. Post-surgical monitoring does not follow a tariff schedule. HVAC in patient wards runs on patient comfort requirements, not grid pricing signals. Operating theatres are scheduled around surgeon availability and patient preparation, not electricity tariffs. The loads that drive peak-hour consumption in a hospital are, by their nature, not deferrable.

This is precisely the problem that BESS is designed to solve.

How BESS addresses the ToD problem for a hospital

A Battery Energy Storage System charges during off-peak hours at the rebated rate and discharges during peak hours, replacing high-cost grid electricity with stored low-cost electricity. The hospital's operations continue exactly as they are. No load is shifted. No schedule is changed. The energy source changes, not the consumption pattern.

For a Hyderabad hospital, the mechanism works as follows:

  • Between 10 PM and 6 AM, the BESS charges from the grid at the base rate less ₹1.50 per unit
  • Between 6 PM and 10 PM, the hospital draws from the battery instead of the grid, avoiding the ₹1.00 per unit peak surcharge entirely
  • The effective saving per unit on peak-hour consumption is the surcharge avoided (₹1.00) plus the difference between the off-peak rebated charging rate and the standard rate

For the 150-bed hospital example above, avoiding the full peak surcharge on 30,000 units saves ₹30,000 per month. If the BESS also captures the off-peak rebate by charging actively during the 10 PM to 6 AM window, the combined monthly benefit can reach ₹60,000 to ₹75,000 on a system sized appropriately for evening load coverage.

The additional benefit: power backup at no added cost

A BESS installed for ToD optimisation in a hospital also provides power backup as a built-in benefit. The same battery bank that shifts peak-hour consumption also switches over instantly when the grid fails, eliminating the transfer gap that diesel generators cannot address. For a Hyderabad hospital that already runs a generator for grid outages, the BESS reduces diesel runtime and fuel costs on top of the ToD saving.

This dual benefit, cost reduction from ToD optimisation and reliability improvement from instant backup, makes the financial case for hospital BESS in Hyderabad stronger than in most other commercial categories.

Questions worth addressing before an evaluation

  • What is the hospital's current monthly consumption during the 6 to 10 PM window, and what is the resulting peak surcharge on the TSSPDCL bill?
  • Are there any non-clinical loads currently running during peak hours that could be shifted to off-peak with minimal operational impact, to reduce the BESS sizing requirement?
  • Does the hospital currently run a diesel generator during grid outages, and what is the monthly fuel and maintenance cost?
  • Is the hospital's contracted demand above 500 kVA, placing it in the higher-impact category for ToD billing?

The answers will define both the immediate saving from BESS and the full cost-benefit case including backup value.

Want to save on your high tariffs with a BESS? Reach out to TurnoVolt to learn more.