Tariffs

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 25 September 2026 · written by the Clearline guidance team · 10 min read

9 dated sources, listed in full below Plain English, written to explain before anyone quotes Figures recomputed at every update, never recycled

A row of UK terraced homes on a residential street

Same kit, five times the export income

On 28 October 2026 the open market spread on solar export rates ran from 2p to 13p per kWh at the larger suppliers, and as high as 25p if the supplier sold you the system. That is a six fold difference across the open market on what every exported unit is worth, and more than twelve fold once the supplier-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
Outgoing Octopus	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 October to 31 December 2026 puts the average capped electricity unit rate at 26.32p per kWh, with an average standing charge of 54.83p 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 19.33p, and against a 9p window it is 17.32p, both at the October to December 2026 cap. Shift 2,000 kWh a year and that is £387 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	26.32p	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	8.5p, 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 October to 31 December 2026 and varies by region and payment method. Off peak rates checked 3 August 2026, except E.ON Next Drive Smart which is corrected to its current 8.5p on this update. 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, and the export rates for each region. On 28 October 2026 export ran from 28.90p to 31.75p in the peak window and from 4.50p to 4.94p in the small hours, both of them export rates, so roughly 24p to 27p a unit rides on whether the battery holds its charge until 4pm. Treat those numbers as a snapshot rather than a quote, and confirm your own region before planning around them. Octopus shows the matching import rates against a postcode, so no import figure is quoted here. Flux also needs manual battery scheduling, and its automated sibling, Intelligent Octopus Flux, is closed to new customers: Octopus lists it as temporarily unavailable and currently exclusive to customers who bought solar panels and a battery from Octopus.

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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.
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

Good Energy's Solar Savings Exclusive rate is 25p for twelve months, after which the account rolls onto its standard Solar Savings tariff, currently 12p. On 2,000 kWh exported that is £500 in year one and £240 in year two at that rate, a £260 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. Good Energy says it reviews the exclusive rate regularly, so confirm the current rate 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, is closed to new customers. Octopus lists it as temporarily unavailable and currently exclusive to customers who bought solar panels and a battery from Octopus.
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 an earlier 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 at the time, only the arithmetic behind the word typical. That figure has since moved again: the confirmed typical bill under the current October to December 2026 cap is £1,723, a 4% rise on £1,663, announced by Ofgem on 26 August 2026. The detail is in the price cap explainer.
Ofgem confirms the next cap, for January to March 2027, roughly nine to ten weeks ahead of the quarter, expected by late November 2026. Early supplier forecasts already point the same way: EDF, British Gas and E.ON Next were all forecasting rises of 21.8% to 23.9% on the whole dual-fuel bill as of 21 to 23 September 2026, while Cornwall Insight's last published forecast, dated 26 August 2026, was a smaller 9% rise. Those are supplier and analyst forecasts, not the cap itself, and the forecast rise is gas-led on the whole bill; solar and a battery only displace the electricity share, which none of the forecasters have published separately. Any payback figure quoted to you this autumn should say which cap it is using, and be treated as provisional until Ofgem's own January announcement.

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

A supplier-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 26.32p 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.

Every system is installed and commissioned by our own MCS-certified, fully insured teams, and we will always tell you honestly 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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Export and off peak tariff rates on this page were checked against supplier or Ofgem pages on 3 August 2026, except the Octopus Flux regional figures, the EDF SEG Export Variable rate and the Good Energy fallback rate, which were checked on 28 October 2026. Price cap figures were refreshed to the October to December 2026 cap on 25 September 2026. 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 28 October 2026, 12p from Outgoing Octopus sat above the 2p to 6p rates open to anyone at the larger suppliers and below the 13p from EDF Export 12m V2 and E.ON Next Export Exclusive v3, 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 28 October 2026 were British Gas Export SEG at 3p, EDF SEG Export Variable at 2p, 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, 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 26.32p. 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 October to 31 December 2026, average unit rates and standing charges, announced 26 August 2026 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
Octopus Energy, Flux regional export rates (public API) and Intelligent Octopus Flux availability, accessed 28 October 2026 octopus.energy