Best Smart Export Guarantee Rates

The Best Smart Export Guarantee Rates in the UK Right Now

One of the benefits of generating clean energy yourself is the ability to sell any excess to the grid.

But how much can you get? How does the Smart Export Guarantee work? What are the best Smart Export Guarantee rates?

If you’re planning to sell the excess energy you generate to pay back your investment in solar, wind or micro hydro, it’s important to know how much you stand to make.

It will also be useful to know who has the best SEG tariff and how long it takes to make your money back.

What is the Smart Export Guarantee?

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a government initiative that encourages energy suppliers to pay you for any renewable energy you feed into the grid.

The idea is to help you pay for your renewable energy system and encourage as many people as possible to go green.

The SEG has been around since 2020 and replaced the FIT (Feed In Tariff). We’ll talk more about FIT in a short while.

How is energy exported to the grid?

Energy is exported to the grid using your mains connection. As you’ll be connected to the grid so you can access energy when you need it, exporting is the reverse.

It’s refreshingly simple considering how difficult it could be!

How energy suppliers pay for exported energy

If you use flat rate generating payments, you’ll be paid into your bank or credited each month from the supplier you have the SEG contract with.

There are two main ways you’ll be paid for export energy to the grid, flat rate generating payments or net metering arrangements.

Flat rate generating payments pays a set amount per unit generated from smaller micro-generation systems.

This is like the FIT system and is mainly for home systems where a small proportion of the energy generated is sold to the grid. Payments are made via meter readings.

Net metering arrangements pay more per unit than the flat rate payment and are for larger scale energy producers. You’ll need an approved export meter alongside your standard meter to measure payments although newer smart meters can usually do both jobs.

If you use a net metering arrangement, you’ll be paid in arrears depending on the number of units registered by the expert meter.

Best Smart Export Guarantee rates in 2023

Smart Export Guarantee rates change regularly but there are a couple of energy producers that tend to pay more than others.

Best SEG tariff comparison table:

 As you can see, the best SEG tariff by a long way is the Octopus Flux tariff.

Scottish Power is a long way behind with their SmartGen tariffs, a whole 9p per kWh less than Octopus.

These prices change over time so check often to see the latest data.

Benefits of SEG

The main benefit of the SEG is that it replaced FIT. There was initially doubt as to whether there would be a replacement at all.

The government introduced SEG to continue encouraging people to invest in renewables and energy generators to create power using renewable sources.

The other benefit of SEG is that it’s easy.

Once your energy system is installed, make sure you have a smart meter, sign up to a contract and the system takes care of itself.

Few people buy a renewable energy system purely to make money but having an SEG contract means you make a little extra money from energy that would otherwise go to waste.

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SEG vs FIT

We mentioned earlier that the SEG replaced FIT back in 2020. FIT finished in 2019 and it took a year for it to be replaced, but it’s not like-for-like.

There’s one key difference between SEG and FIT. One that has a huge influence over how much they are worth.

The FIT (Feed In Tariff) was a very generous initiative with contracts that could last up to 20 years. The tariff paid you for 50% of the energy your system generates.

SEG on the other hand, pays you only for excess energy you feed back into the grid.

SEG is fairer, as you’re only paid for what you sell but you earn far less than with FIT.

If you’re already on a FIT tariff, it’s likely to be paying more than SEG. If that’s the case, we would suggest remaining with FIT until your contract ends.

What is the worst Smart Export Guarantee rate?

While none of the SEG rates currently available pay close to what we pay for retail energy, some suppliers pay more than others.

The current supplier with the worst Smart Export Guarantee rate is E. They pay a mere 1p per kWh.

That’s significantly less than those suppliers in the table above!

What types of renewable energy systems are eligible for SEG?

To qualify for the Smart Energy Guarantee, you’ll need to generate renewable energy from specific sources.

1. Solar panels
2. Wind turbines
3. Hydro
4. Micro combined heat and power
5. Anaerobic digesters

There’s an upper limit of 5mW for all but the combined heat and power system, which has an upper limit of 50mW.

That’s far more than most home energy systems can generate!

You’ll also need a Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) certificate to prove your system is compliant or have had your system installed by certified installers.

How much money can you earn through the Smart Export Guarantee?

How much money you can earn through the Smart Export Rate Guarantee depends entirely on how much excess energy you’re sending to the grid, and your SEG contract.

Income can also be location dependent. For example, those in the south of England get more sunshine hours than those in Scotland, which generates more energy.

Generate more, earn more.

For example, if you have a 3.5 kWh solar panel system and are on the most accessible Scottish Power tariff at 12p per kWh, you could earn around £160 per year if you live in the south of England.

The same house in northern Scotland will earn around £130. And it’s all down to how much sunshine you get.

Smaller systems will obviously make less. Use more energy and you’ll export less and will get paid less.

A typical on-grid solar system from Sunstore Solar will include 8 – 12 solar panels of 400w each, plus a battery bank. 

This could potentially save you 75% – 90% on energy bills with the potential to zero your energy bill if required.

Installing a system from Sunstore Solar, and taking advantage of the SEG is a great way to help save on your energy bills along with earning some extra cash from selling your excess energy back to the grid.

The best solar export tariff in the UK

The Smart Export Guarantee is a useful way to make a little extra from renewable energy. It isn’t going to make you rich, but it can help repay the investment you made in clean energy.

It is for this reason, that we recommend signing up to SEG if you generate excess power on a regular basis.

It’s simple to set up, requires just a smart meter or export meter and you’ll either be paid into your bank or have credits added to your energy bill.

Once set up, it provides free money over the long term with very few downsides. While it isn’t as generous as FIT and doesn’t pay anything close to what we are charged for that same energy, it’s all we have and are likely to have in the near future.

For those reasons alone, we strongly recommend signing up once your solar energy system has been installed.

Talk to one of the Sunstore Solar team to discuss your needs.