A padel court builder in Gurugram called us after completing what looked like a perfectly good court — steel frame, EN-certified glass, imported artificial grass. The client had turned the lights on for the first time on a Thursday evening and immediately called to say the court was too dim to play. Six 150W LED floodlights had been installed. Total load: 0.9 kW. Correct load for 300 lux on a padel court: 8–12 kW. The builder had copied a parking-lot lighting spec and called it done.
Lighting is where padel electricity requirements catch people out — not because the numbers are complicated but because courts look fine in daylight and the spec error only shows up the first evening. By then the court is built, the wiring is run, and retrofitting proper fixtures means redoing the conduit and possibly upgrading the sub-panel.
This guide gives you the actual numbers so you can spec it right before the concrete is poured.
Lux Requirements: What Padel Needs
Padel requires a minimum of 300 lux at court surface level (measured at 1m height) for recreational play. Competitive club and league play needs 500 lux. These figures are at the court surface — not the power of the fixtures, not the watts consumed, but the actual light falling on the playing area.
| Use case | Min lux (surface) | Typical LED load |
|---|
| Hotel/resort recreational | 300 lux | 8–10 kW per court |
| Commercial club | 500 lux | 10–14 kW per court |
| Tournament / broadcast | 750+ lux | 16–20 kW per court |
The key insight is that lux is a measurement of light arriving at a surface, and it falls off with the square of the distance. A floodlight 8m above the court delivers significantly less lux per watt than the same fixture at 5m. Padel courts typically mount lights at 5–6m on the steel structure — at that height, 300 lux requires approximately 8–10 kW of LED load across 6–8 fixtures placed correctly above the court.
Load Calculation Per Court
For a single padel court at 300 lux (recreational standard), plan for 8–12 kW. For 500 lux (competitive club), plan for 12–16 kW. Double these figures for a two-court cluster with shared metering.
The load is entirely lighting — padel courts have no other significant electrical draw unless you add an indoor air-conditioning or ventilation system. For indoor courts, add the HVAC load separately: a 200m² enclosed court in Delhi typically needs 5–7 TR of air-conditioning, which is another 6–9 kW of electrical load.
LED is now the standard for new padel court installations in India. Same lux output at 30–40% of the power draw, instant-on (no 5-minute warm-up), 50,000+ hour lifespan vs 8,000 hours for metal halide, and better colour rendering for ball visibility.
Metal halide was common in courts built before 2020 and is still found in budget builds. If you are retrofitting an older court or evaluating a used-court purchase, the lighting system is the first thing to budget for an upgrade. Switching a metal halide system to LED typically costs ₹1.5–3L per court in India and cuts the monthly electricity bill by ₹4,000–8,000.
Wiring and Panel Specification
A padel court lighting system needs: a dedicated sub-panel (RCCB + MCBs) for the court, 6mm² copper cable from the main distribution board to the court panel, a dedicated earth rod at the court, and weatherproof conduit for all outdoor runs.
The sub-panel should be sized for 125% of the expected load — for a 10 kW court, a 16A 3-phase RCCB is typically correct. All connections from the panel to the fixtures must be in UV-resistant weatherproof conduit (not PVC conduit used indoors), especially in outdoor or semi-outdoor installations where direct sunlight and monsoon rain will degrade ordinary conduit quickly.
Checking Your Meter Capacity
Before adding a padel court, check your sanctioned load at the meter. Adding 10–16 kW of lighting to a property already running near its limit will trip the meter or require a load enhancement from DISCOMS — which takes time and money.
In Delhi NCR, a load enhancement request from BSES or TPDDL takes 4–8 weeks and costs ₹800–1,500 per kW of additional sanctioned load. A property with a 30 kW sanction running an existing 22 kW load has only 8 kW of headroom — not enough for a properly lit single court. Factor this into the timeline and budget if your property is already at capacity.
The process is: apply to your DISCOM with a load enhancement form, pay the connection charge, and wait for the technical assessment and meter upgrade. Do not simply install the court and hope the meter does not trip — a sustained overload can damage the meter and result in a penalty notice from the DISCOM.
Monthly Electricity Running Costs
At 10 kW load, 5 hours of evening play per day, 25 active days per month, and a commercial tariff of ₹8/unit, the monthly electricity cost for a single court is approximately ₹10,000.
This is a meaningful number for a court generating ₹70,000–1L/month in revenue — roughly 10–15% of gross revenue — but it is manageable. The mistake is underestimating it at the planning stage and then discovering the unit economics are tighter than expected.
For a two-court cluster with 16 kW total LED load running the same 5 hours/day: approximately ₹16,000/month in electricity. Revenue from two courts is typically ₹1.4–2.5L/month, so electricity remains a manageable 6–12% of gross.
Generator and Solar Options
For commercial courts, a 15–20 kVA diesel generator provides adequate backup for a single court during power cuts. Solar PV with battery storage is technically viable but expensive for a night-time lighting load — most commercial operators use DG backup and consider solar only for daytime operation.
A 15 kVA diesel generator costs ₹2.5–3.5L and runs at approximately ₹35–45/hour on fuel. At 2 power cuts per week, each lasting 2 hours, the monthly generator fuel cost is roughly ₹2,800–3,600 — acceptable for a court generating ₹80K+ per month.
Solar is viable for a court that operates primarily during daytime (10 am–5 pm), particularly at resort properties where daytime play is the norm. In that case, a 10–15 kW solar array costing ₹5–8L can cover most of the lighting load during play hours without battery storage. Evening play requires either grid power or battery storage, which adds ₹3–6L for a typical court setup.
Failure Modes: What Goes Wrong with Padel Court Electricity
Three electrical failures account for most post-installation problems on padel courts in India.
- Under-specified lighting load. As in the opening example — a builder copies a parking-lot spec and delivers 80–120 lux instead of 300. The fix is expensive because the conduit and panel need to be upgraded. Specify lux output (not wattage) in your contract, with a post-installation lux meter measurement as an acceptance criterion.
- Non-weatherproof conduit outdoors. Standard PVC conduit cracks in 2–3 Indian summers of UV exposure and monsoon cycling. Joints that were tight at installation begin to admit water. The first trip of an RCCB during monsoon is usually this. Use rigid HDPE or armoured cable in weatherproof conduit for all outdoor runs.
- Missing earth rod at the court. A court with steel frame and no local earth is a slow-motion electrical hazard. Players touching the frame during a fault can receive a shock through the artificial grass. A dedicated copper earth rod at the court (separate from the building earth) is not optional.
For a full cost breakdown where electricity and lighting infrastructure are itemised, see our guide on padel court construction costs in India. For how electricity requirements scale with a two-court build, see the guide on padel court multi-court complexes.
