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Why tariff choice moves payback more than kit choice

Two homes with identical hardware can sit five times apart on export income, purely because of which tariff they signed. It is the cheapest decision to change and the one most homeowners leave until last. Worked through here with rates checked on 3 August 2026.

Updated 4 August 2026 · written by the Clearline guidance team

10 dated sources, listed in full below Independent guidance, written to inform rather than sell Figures recomputed at every update, never recycled

A white-rendered UK terrace under a deep blue sky, solar on one roof

Same kit, five times the export income

On 3 August 2026 the open market spread on solar export rates ran from 3p to 15p per kWh, and as high as 25p if the supplier sold you the system. That is a five fold difference across the open market on what every exported unit is worth, and more than eight fold once the installer locked rates are counted, and none of it depends on which panels are on your roof or whose battery is on your wall. Two identical installations, half a mile apart, can be five times apart on export income because one household filled in a different form.

The hardware is fixed on the day. The tariff is not

Once the scaffold comes down, your generation is broadly set for twenty years. Your export tariff is a twelve month product you can review every year, and switching it costs nothing but paperwork. That asymmetry is why the tariff deserves more attention than it usually gets, and why it is worth deciding before you sign anything, not after.

The arithmetic, holding the kit constant

To isolate the tariff effect, fix everything else. Assume a home that exports 2,000 kWh a year to the grid and change nothing but the export tariff it is signed up to. The 2,000 kWh is an illustration rather than a forecast, because real export volume depends on array size, when you use electricity and whether a battery is soaking up the surplus first. Every county page across our coverage area carries a calculator that works out the export volume for a specific roof and usage pattern, which is the number you should substitute in.

A UK SMETS2 smart meter with a live display in a utility cupboard — Half-hourly metering is what makes every rate in this guide possible.

Export tariff	Rate	Who can get it	Income on 2,000 kWh
British Gas Export SEG	3p	Anyone, including non customers and developers	£60
OVO SEG	4p	Anyone, system under 5MW	£80
E.ON Next Flex Export v1	6p variable	Anyone, up to 5MW	£120
Octopus Outgoing Octopus (Fixed)	12p flat	Octopus import customer with a smart meter	£240
E.ON Next Export Exclusive v3	13p	E.ON Next import customer, not on a time of use import tariff	£260
EDF Export 12m	15p	Existing EDF residential electricity customers	£300
EDF Export Exclusive 12m V3	18p	System enquired about and purchased from EDF after 2 March 2026	£360

Rates checked against supplier pages on 3 August 2026. All are per kWh exported. The 2,000 kWh figure is a worked illustration, not a prediction for your roof.

The gap between the bottom row anyone can have and the best rate available by simply being the right supplier's customer is £240 a year on identical hardware. Nothing about the panels changed. Nothing about the battery changed. The roof is the same roof. Over a ten year holding period that single decision is worth £2,400, and it is recoverable at any annual renewal if you get it wrong first time. The full ranked list, with every condition spelled out, is in the August 2026 export rates comparison.

Before you commit to a system, it is worth knowing which export tariffs you actually qualify for, because that answer changes what the same kit is worth to you. Our free design call covers it, with no obligation.

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The import side moves as much again

Export is only half of it. The Ofgem cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026 puts the average capped electricity unit rate at 26.11p per kWh, with an average standing charge of 57.19p a day. Overnight EV and smart tariffs currently cluster between 6.99p and 9p. Every kWh you move from the capped rate into a 6.99p window is worth 19.12p, and against a 9p window it is 17.11p. Shift 2,000 kWh a year and that is £382 at the bottom of the range, which is larger than most of the export gains in the table above. A home battery is what makes that shift possible in the first place, and the mechanism is set out in off peak battery arbitrage explained.

Tariff	Off peak rate	Window	Main condition
Ofgem price cap, average capped unit rate	26.11p	All day	This is the default if you do nothing
EDF GoElectric Overnight	6.99p	11pm to 6am, 7 hours nightly	EDF electricity account, fully connected smart meter, £75 exit fee
E.ON Next Drive Smart	8p, fixed 12 months	12am to 6am, whole home	Smart meter with half hourly consent, eligible EV and charger
Intelligent Octopus Go	From 8p	23:30 to 05:30 whole home, plus smart scheduled charging up to 6 hours daily	Compatible EV or charger managed through the Octopus app
E.ON Next Drive	9p	12am to 6am, whole home	Any EV and any charger, smart meter, 1 year fixed
British Gas Electric Driver	9p	12am to 5am, whole home	British Gas electricity customer, any EV or charger
OVO Charge Anytime	14p	No fixed window, the app picks the time	Compatible EV or charger, smart meter, OVO account

Capped rate is the Great Britain average for 1 July to 30 September 2026 and varies by region and payment method. Off peak rates checked 3 August 2026. Most of these tariffs require an electric vehicle or a compatible charger, so they are not open to every household.

The battery version of the same argument

Octopus Flux is a three rate tariff for homes with both solar and a battery, built around a premium export price into the late afternoon peak. Octopus publishes the structure and the windows, 2am to 5am and 4pm to 7pm, but gates the actual rates behind a postcode. Comparison site figures for a typical region put export near 29.32p in the peak window and near 4.99p in the small hours, both of them export rates, so roughly 24p a unit rides on whether the battery holds its charge until 4pm. Treat those numbers as indicative rather than quoted, and confirm your own region before planning around them. Octopus gates the matching import rates behind a postcode as well, so no import figure is quoted here. Flux also needs manual battery scheduling, and its automated sibling, Intelligent Octopus Flux, has been closed to new customers since April 2026.

The best headline rates come with a hardware lock

The rates above 17p are not open market rates. Every one of them requires that a particular supplier, or its installation arm, sold you the system. That turns an energy tariff into a hardware procurement decision, and it is where the argument gets uncomfortable, because the pence per kWh is easy to see and the installed price, kit specification and workmanship behind it are not.

The top rates are gated on who supplies you or on who installed the system.

Good Energy Solar Savings Exclusive pays 25p fixed for 12 months, but only if the battery was installed through Good Energy and you take their electricity.
OVO SEG Install Exclusive pays up to 20p, but only where OVO installs the solar or the battery, and it falls to 15p for solar with no battery.
So Energy So Bright pays 20p, but only where So Energy installs both the solar and the battery and supplies your electricity.
EDF Export Exclusive 12m V3 pays 18p, but only where the system was enquired about and purchased from EDF after 2 March 2026.
E.ON Next Export Premium v3 pays 17.5p fixed for 12 months, but only where E.ON Installation Services fitted the system on or after 10 November 2025.

Check what happens in year two

So Energy's So Bright rate is 20p for twelve months, after which the account moves to So Export Flex at 4.5p. On 2,000 kWh exported that is £400 in year one and £90 in year two, a £310 fall with no change whatsoever to the hardware. A twelve month headline is a twelve month promise. The number that decides payback is what you are paid across years two to twenty, so read the reversion rate before the headline rate. Rates for this tariff come from trade press rather than the supplier's own tariff page, so confirm them directly before deciding.

Tariffs move. Your roof does not

British Gas has replaced its export lineup. The 15.1p Export and Earn Plus rate that comparison sites still quote no longer appears on the sign up page. What is there now is Export Premium at 12p, Export Extra at 8p for systems over 15kW, Export SEG at 3p and Export Voidcare SEG at 6p.
Intelligent Octopus Flux, the automated version of Flux, has been closed to new customers since April 2026.
OVO withdrew Heat Pump Plus from 1 February 2026, taking with it an effective 15p per kWh heat pump rate paid as a monthly rebate. Anyone who planned a heat pump around that tariff had the running cost assumption changed underneath them.
Ofgem restated the typical annual bill under the current cap from £1,862 to £1,663 after cutting its typical consumption values to 2,500 kWh of electricity and 9,500 kWh of gas. The cap level and the unit rates did not change, only the arithmetic behind the word typical. The detail is in the price cap explainer.
The cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026 will be published by 26 August 2026, so any payback figure quoted to you this month rests on a rate that is about to be superseded.

The order to make these decisions in

Step 1

List the tariffs open to you first

Work out which export and off peak tariffs you can reach as an ordinary switching customer, before anyone quotes you for hardware. That sets the floor and the ceiling on what your generation will be worth.

Step 2

Price the lock, do not just admire the rate

An installer locked 20p only beats an open market 15p if the installed price, the specification and the guarantee survive comparison with an independent quote. Get that quote, then convert the extra pence into pounds per year and judge the two together.

Step 3

Do the import side as well as the export side

Moving overnight consumption from the 26.11p capped average into a 6.99p to 9p window is worth 17p to 19p on every unit shifted, and it works in December when generation is thin. For most homes with a battery this is the larger of the two effects.

Step 4

Confirm the mechanics before you sign

Smart Export Guarantee payments need MCS certification or an accepted equivalent, DNO proof of connection under G98 or G99, and a smart meter recording export every half hour. Octopus quotes 1 to 4 weeks for the DNO to create your export MPAN and roughly 2 to 5 weeks for full onboarding. OVO quotes about 4 weeks and asks for battery schematics where one is fitted.

Step 5

Diary a review before each anniversary

Most of the good rates are twelve month fixed products sitting next to much weaker variable siblings. Put a reminder in eleven months and check the market again rather than rolling over by default.

Installations are carried out by an MCS-certified installation team for your area, and Clearline stays independent throughout, which is why we will tell you when a supplier's own install deal genuinely wins and when it does not. Book the free design call to have both sides run for your property.

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Every rate on this page was checked against supplier or Ofgem pages on 3 August 2026, except the Octopus Flux regional figures and the So Energy rates, which come from secondary sources because the supplier pages gate or omit them and are flagged as such above. Export and off peak tariffs change frequently. Confirm the current rate directly with the supplier before relying on it. More background sits in our tariffs guide and the solar guide.

FAQs

Tariff and payback questions, answered

Is 12p a good export rate?

It is a solid open market rate rather than a top one. On 3 August 2026, 12p from Octopus Outgoing sat above the 3p to 6p rates open to anyone and below EDF Export 12m at 15p and E.ON Next Export Exclusive v3 at 13p, both of which require you to take your electricity from that supplier. The rates above 17p all require the supplier to have sold or installed the system. On 2,000 kWh exported, the difference between 12p and 15p is £60 a year.

Can I get a decent export rate without switching supplier?

Yes, but you give up most of the value. The genuinely no strings rates on 3 August 2026 were British Gas Export SEG and EDF SEG Export Variable at 3p, OVO SEG at 4p and E.ON Next Flex Export at 6p. Everything from 12p upwards was conditioned on being that supplier's import customer, or on them having installed the system. Whether the switch is worth it depends on what their import tariff costs you, so compare both halves rather than the export rate alone.

Do I have to buy from a supplier to get their best export rate?

For the top rates, yes. Good Energy's 25p needs the battery installed through them, OVO's up to 20p needs OVO to install, So Energy's 20p needs them to install both solar and battery, EDF's 18p needs the system purchased from EDF, and E.ON's 17.5p needs E.ON Installation Services to have fitted it. That makes the rate part of a package price, so compare the installed cost and specification against an independent quote before treating the pence as free money.

Does a better tariff beat a bigger battery?

They are not really alternatives. A battery is often the eligibility condition for the better tariff: Octopus Flux requires solar plus a battery, OVO pays 20p rather than 15p only where a battery is fitted, and Good Energy's 25p is conditioned on a battery install. The battery is also what lets you buy at 6.99p to 9p overnight instead of 26.11p. Size the battery to the house, then pick the tariff that pays the most for what it can do.

Do I need a smart meter and MCS certification to be paid for export?

In practice yes. The Smart Export Guarantee is paid from export meter readings, which needs half hourly capable metering. British Gas, as an example, requires an MCS certificate, Flexi-Orb certificate or equivalent accreditation, G98 or G99 proof of grid connection from your DNO, and a smart meter recording export every 30 minutes. OVO requires MCS certification or equivalent, a smart meter and battery schematics where a battery is fitted. The scheme itself covers solar PV, wind, hydro, anaerobic digestion and micro-CHP up to 5MW in Great Britain.

How long before the export payments actually start?

Allow roughly a month or more after commissioning. Octopus quotes 1 to 4 weeks for the DNO to create your export MPAN and about 2 to 5 weeks for full onboarding. OVO quotes approximately 4 weeks. Payment frequency then varies by supplier: British Gas, for instance, pays quarterly within 28 days of the reading. If you started receiving Feed in Tariff payments in the last 12 months, FiT rules block you from switching export arrangements, and SEG cannot be combined with FiT export payments.

See the numbers next: Duracell Dura16, installed, or export rates compared.

Figures and specifications in this guide are sourced below and were checked on the date shown. Rates and product specifications change; we confirm the current picture on your free design call.

Sources

Ofgem, energy price cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026, average unit rates and standing charges ofgem.gov.uk
Ofgem, Smart Export Guarantee scheme rules, eligible technologies and metering requirements ofgem.gov.uk
Octopus Energy, Outgoing Octopus, Flux and Intelligent Octopus Go tariff pages octopus.energy
British Gas, Smart Export Guarantee export tariffs and evidence requirements britishgas.co.uk
E.ON Next, Smart Export Guarantee rates, Next Drive EV tariff and price cap restatement eonnext.com
EDF, smart export tariff rates and GoElectric Overnight EV tariff edfenergy.com
OVO, Smart Export Guarantee rates, signup requirements and Charge Anytime ovoenergy.com
Good Energy, Solar Savings and Solar Savings Exclusive export rates goodenergy.co.uk
Solar Power Portal, So Energy export rate increase to 20p, secondary source solarpowerportal.co.uk
Sunsave, SEG rate roundup used for Octopus Flux regional figures, secondary source sunsave.energy