The price of one lit court-hour
Two numbers decide what a lit court costs: how much power the floodlights draw, and what you pay for each unit.
Power. Padel courts are lit with a small number of LED floodlights. A recent UK planning application for a single outdoor public court specifies four 300 W fittings, about 1.2 kW for the court. Indoor halls and courts lit for competition use more: one manufacturer's indoor reference design uses eight 320 W floodlights, about 2.6 kW. Most courts sit somewhere between those two.
Price. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero publishes what businesses actually pay for electricity, by size of consumer (Quarterly Energy Prices, table 3.4.2, including the Climate Change Levy, excluding VAT). For April to June 2026:
| Consumer size (annual use) | Average price |
|---|---|
| Very small (up to 20 MWh) | 38.4p per kWh |
| Small (20 to 500 MWh) | 28.6p per kWh |
| Small/medium (500 to 2,000 MWh) | 27.7p per kWh |
A club with a few courts and a clubhouse usually sits in the small band. A court or two on its own supply may fall in the very small one. That gives a working figure:
| Court load | At 28.6p | At 38.4p |
|---|---|---|
| 1.2 kW (outdoor, public court spec) | 34p an hour | 46p an hour |
| 2.0 kW | 57p an hour | 77p an hour |
| 2.6 kW (indoor, higher lighting class) | 74p an hour | £1.00 an hour |
That is the cost of every hour the lights are on, booked or not. Add VAT if you cannot reclaim it.
Where the empty hours come from
The rate is fixed by your tariff. The bill is set by the hours, and specifically by the hours the lights are on with nobody playing. Three common ways of running the lights give very different numbers. The examples below are worked figures, so change the inputs to your own.
1. Lights on from opening to close. An indoor club with two courts, open 08:00 to 22:00, turns the lights on in the morning and off at night, or runs them on a time clock. That is 28 lit court-hours a day. If 60% of those hours are booked, which is a healthy figure for most of the year, 11.2 hours a day are lit with nobody on court.
At 2.0 kW and 28.6p, that is about £6.40 a day, or about £2,300 a year: roughly £1,170 a court, spent lighting empty courts.
2. Outdoor courts on a dusk-to-close timer. Outdoor courts only need light after dark, so they start lower. In midwinter, though, dusk comes at around 16:00, and a timer then runs the lights until close. On a court that closes at 22:00 that is six lit hours a day. If three of them are booked, three are lit and empty.
At 1.2 kW and 28.6p, that is about £1 a court a day. Over the four darkest months it comes to about £125 a court, before you count autumn and spring evenings.
3. Lights that follow the bookings. When the booking system switches the lights, a court is lit only around each booking: on a minute before, off a couple of minutes after. Eight bookings a day leave about 24 minutes of lit time with nobody playing.
At 1.2 kW and 28.6p, that is about 14p a court a day, or about £50 a year. At 2.0 kW it is about £85 a year.
What that comes to
| How the lights are run | Empty lit time | Cost of empty lit time |
|---|---|---|
| Opening to close, indoor, 60% booked | 5.6 hours a court a day | about £1,170 a court a year |
| Dusk-to-close timer, outdoor, midwinter | 3 hours a court a day | about £1 a court a day |
| Following the bookings | about 24 minutes a court a day | about £50 to £85 a court a year |
These figures move in straight lines. Double the court load and they double. Use the very-small-business price and they rise by a third. A quieter month leaves more empty hours, not fewer.
In practice, even booking-driven lights are sometimes held on by hand: a coach arriving early, staff testing a court, a switch thrown at the board and forgotten. That is normal, and it is the number worth watching.
What to do with the number
Three things make a measurable difference.
- Know your court load. A clamp meter on the lighting circuit, or the rating on the floodlight drivers, gives you the kW. Without it, every saving is a guess.
- Count the empty hours, not the booked ones. Your booking system already tells you the booked hours. The number you need is the lit hours with no booking, by court and by day.
- Make the lights follow the bookings, and keep a manual switch. Staff still need to light a court for coaching or a tournament. A selector at the board (hand, off, automatic) lets them do that without fighting the system, and a daily report shows when it happened.
The second point is the one most clubs miss. A venue that sees "1.7 hours lit with no booking yesterday" every morning tends to find out why within a week.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to light a padel court for an hour?
At the April to June 2026 average price for small business consumers, 28.6p per kWh (DESNZ, including the Climate Change Levy, excluding VAT), a 1.2 kW LED court costs about 34p an hour to light, and a 2.6 kW indoor court about 74p an hour. On the very-small-business price of 38.4p, those become 46p and £1.00.
How much power do padel court floodlights use?
A typical outdoor LED installation uses four floodlights of around 300 W, about 1.2 kW per court. Indoor courts and courts lit to a higher class use more, up to about 2.6 kW. The rating on your floodlight drivers, or a clamp meter on the circuit, gives your own figure.
How much do empty lit courts cost a year?
It depends on how the lights are switched. Lights left on from opening to close at an indoor club booked 60% of the time cost about £1,170 a court a year in empty hours at 2026 prices. Lights that follow the bookings cut that to about £50 to £85 a court.
Is it worth automating padel court lights?
For a club that runs its lights for the whole opening day, the empty hours usually cost far more each year than automating them. For outdoor courts lit only after dark the saving is smaller, but real in winter, when timers light courts for hours nobody booked. Lighting is one line of a club's costs: what it costs to run a padel club in the UK sets out the rest, and what padel venues pay for automation has the market prices to weigh against the saving.
If you want to see your own empty lit hours from your real bookings, our court lighting control page shows how the lights follow the schedule, and we can run the numbers for your venue on a short call.
Sources: DESNZ Quarterly Energy Prices, table 3.4.2, prices of fuels purchased by non-domestic consumers including the Climate Change Levy, Q2 2026 (published 29 September 2026). Outdoor court load from a 2025 lighting design for a single public padel court, submitted to the London Borough of Camden. Indoor court load from a sports-lighting manufacturer's published indoor padel reference design. The examples are worked figures, not measurements from any venue.
