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TariffsWhy the best export rates always carry conditions
The headline export rates in the market are real. They are also acquisition offers, and the condition attached to each one has a price you can work out before you commit to it.
Updated 4 August 2026 · written by the Clearline guidance team
There are only three kinds of export rate
Once you have looked at enough of them, the whole market sorts into three tiers, and the tier tells you the rate before you read it.
| Tier | Typical rate | What the supplier gets |
|---|---|---|
| Open to anyone | 3p to 6p | Nothing beyond your exported electricity, bought at close to its wholesale worth |
| Gated on import supply | 12p to 15p | Your electricity account, worth far more to them than your export |
| Gated on installation | 17.5p to 25p | Your installation order, the single biggest transaction in this market |
Bands only, from rates verified on suppliers' own pages on 3 August 2026. This page is about the conditions. Every individual rate, supplier by supplier, lives on one URL: the export rates comparison.
The rate is the discount, not the reward
Nobody pays four times the going rate for the same electricity out of generosity. The top rate in the market buys a battery installation. The ones below it buy an install from the supplier's own installation arm, or a purchase made inside a date window, or your electricity account for a year. Price the condition and you have priced the rate.
What each condition actually costs you
The import supply condition
Six of the tariffs in the middle tier, spread across EDF, E.ON Next, British Gas, Octopus, Good Energy and OVO, require you to buy your electricity from the same supplier. That is a genuine cost, because it removes your ability to chase the cheapest import tariff for as long as the export deal runs. The rates each of them pays are listed in the comparison.
Whether it is worth it depends on the size of the two numbers. Your import bill is almost always the larger of the two. At the Ofgem average capped rate of 26.11p per kWh for the July to September 2026 quarter, a household drawing the typical 2,500 kWh a year spends around £653 on units before standing charges. Compare that with £120 of export income on 1,000 kWh at 12p. Locking your import supply to protect a smaller number is the wrong way round if the import tariff is uncompetitive.
There is a sharper version of this trap. E.ON Next excludes time-of-use import tariffs from Export Exclusive v3, so you cannot pair that export rate with an EV charging tariff from the same supplier. If you drive electric, that exclusion may cost you more than the export rate earns.
The installation condition
This is the expensive one, and it is the one dressed up as the best deal. Five rates in the market as at 3 August 2026 require the supplier to have sold you the system, and between them they carry four distinct flavours of condition: the supplier must have installed it, or you must have purchased it from them, or a battery must be part of the job, or the electricity supply has to come from them as well. The rate each one pays, and which supplier attaches which condition, is set out in the export rates comparison. This page is about what those conditions cost you.
Every one of these is a legitimate offer. The question is never whether the rate is real, it is whether the installation price behind it is competitive. You are not comparing a headline rate against an open-market one. You are comparing a whole package against a whole package, and the installation is the far larger number on both sides.
The arithmetic that settles it
Work out the annual value of the premium, then compare it against the installation price difference. Take the rate you have been offered, subtract the best rate you could qualify for without the condition, and that difference in pence is your premium. On 1,000 kWh of export a year it is worth this much.
| Premium over the rate you could get anyway | Annual gain per 1,000 kWh exported | Gain over a 12-month fixed term |
|---|---|---|
| 5p more | £50 | £50, then it depends what it drops to |
| 6p more | £60 | £60, then it depends what it drops to |
| 8p more | £80 | £80, then it depends what it drops to |
| 13p more | £130 | £130, then it depends what it drops to |
Straight arithmetic on a round 1,000 kWh of export. The rows are calibrated against a 12p import-gated rate, which is where most households realistically start. If your baseline is the highest open-market rate instead, your premium is smaller by 3p and every figure shrinks with it. Scale to your own modelled export volume, and take the rates themselves from the comparison.
That is the number the installer-locked rate is worth to you in year one. If the tied installation costs £600 more than a comparable one, even the largest premium in the table takes roughly five years of export to make the difference back, and the rate itself is only fixed for one of them. One supplier makes the point unusually clearly by publishing what happens next: a headline rate for 12 months, then a fallback that sits below most open-market rates. Both figures are in the comparison.
Read the term, not just the rate
Almost every high export rate is fixed for 12 months. What happens in month 13 is where the value goes. One supplier publishes the fallback rate openly. The rest simply move you to whatever the standard product is at the time, which is a number nobody can quote you today. Ask the question before you sign, and write the answer down.
The conditions nobody mentions in the advert
- Capacity ceilings. E.ON Next's export tariffs cap at 15kW for residential. British Gas Export Premium caps at 15kW and moves anything larger onto a lower-paying product. OVO's SEG products run to 30kW. Domestic systems rarely hit these, but a large roof plus a battery can get closer than you expect.
- Purchase date windows. EDF's installer-locked rate applies to enquiries and purchases after 2 March 2026. E.ON Next's applies to installs from 10 November 2025. If your system predates the window, the rate is not available to you at any price.
- Technology limits. EDF's fixed Export 12m is solar PV only. That matters if you are exporting from a battery as well as a roof.
- Product withdrawal. Intelligent Octopus Flux has been closed to new customers since April 2026, and British Gas's widely quoted Export and Earn Plus no longer appears on its sign-up page. Tariffs disappear, and comparison sites keep quoting them for months afterwards.
- Exit fees. Most export tariffs carry none, and several suppliers say so explicitly. Import tariffs are a different matter: at least one overnight EV tariff carries a £75 exit fee, which matters if the export rate ties you to that supplier's import side too.
We do not sell installations, so we have no stake in which supplier you choose. A free design call prices the condition alongside the rate.
Get your free quote →How we would approach it
Price the installation first
Get a competitive figure for the system you actually want, from a route with no tariff attached. That is your baseline.
Model your export volume
Not your generation. Your export, after self-consumption and after the battery has taken its share. It is usually a lot lower than people assume.
Multiply the premium
Rate premium in pence, times modelled export in kWh, divided by 100. That is the annual gain, in pounds.
Compare against the price gap
If the tied installation costs more than a few years of that gain, the open-market route wins, and you keep the freedom to switch.
Because export volume depends heavily on roof orientation and household usage, the honest version of this calculation is postcode-specific. Every county page in our coverage area carries a calculator that models it, and the full picture of what each supplier currently pays is in the export rates comparison. If you are still deciding on kit, the sizing guide comes first, and the tariffs overview ties the two together.
All rates and conditions on this page were verified against supplier pages on 3 August 2026 and can change without notice.
Conditions and eligibility, answered
Can I get the headline export rates if someone else installed my system?
No. The top tier all require the supplier to have sold you the installation, and two of them require a battery to be part of the job. If your system was already fitted by a different installation team, those rates are closed to you at any price, and your ceiling is the import-gated tier instead. Which supplier pays what is in the export rates comparison.
Is EDF's installer-locked rate open to existing solar owners?
No. Export Exclusive 12m V3 requires the solar or battery to have been purchased from EDF, with the enquiry and purchase both falling after 2 March 2026. Existing EDF electricity customers with a system bought elsewhere are directed to the standard 12-month export tariff instead.
Does an installer-locked rate mean I am tied in for years?
The export rate is usually fixed for 12 months, not for the life of the system, and most export tariffs carry no exit fee. What ties you in is the installation itself, which you cannot undo. That is why the installation price deserves more scrutiny than the export rate.
Why does the same supplier pay more when a battery is fitted?
A battery makes your export more valuable to them, because it can be shifted into the hours when grid electricity is expensive. Flat solar export arrives in the middle of the day when wholesale prices are lowest. The step up in rate is the supplier pricing that flexibility, and at least one supplier publishes both versions of the same tariff so you can see the size of it.
Can I take a high export rate and switch import supplier later?
Not while the export tariff requires import supply from the same company. Those conditions are ongoing, not a one-off check at signup. If you leave, the export arrangement usually goes with you, so factor a full year of import pricing into the decision.
Are open-market export rates going to improve?
Export rates are set commercially and move both ways. British Gas replaced its whole export lineup this year and its widely quoted headline rate vanished from the sign-up page, while comparison sites carried on quoting it. Treat any rate as a snapshot with a date on it, and check the current picture in the export rates comparison, which carries the date it was verified.
See the numbers next: Tesla Powerwall 3, 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
- EDF, Export Exclusive 12m V3 and Export 12m rates, purchase date conditions and capacity limits, accessed 3 August 2026 edfenergy.com
- E.ON Next, Export Premium v3 and Export Exclusive v3 eligibility, install date and time-of-use exclusion, accessed 3 August 2026 eonnext.com
- OVO Energy, SEG Install Exclusive and Beyond Exclusive rates and capacity limits, accessed 3 August 2026 ovoenergy.com
- Good Energy, Solar Savings Exclusive 25p battery install condition, accessed 3 August 2026 goodenergy.co.uk
- British Gas, Export Premium and Export Extra capacity thresholds, accessed 3 August 2026 britishgas.co.uk
- Ofgem, average capped electricity unit rate and typical consumption values for 1 July to 30 September 2026, accessed 3 August 2026 ofgem.gov.uk
- Solar Power Portal, So Energy 20p export offer and the So Export Flex fallback rate (secondary source) solarpowerportal.co.uk
- EDF, GoElectric Overnight exit fee, accessed 3 August 2026 edfenergy.com