Solar Panel Exported Electricity

Richard741

Instead of your electricity supplier paying for the electricity which the solar panels “export” to the national grid (if you have such an agreement).  Why don’t the suppliers just credit you with the exported kilowatts.   If that makes your total electricity consumption zero, any additional exported electricity is held in an “account” to offset the days that the solar panels do not generate enough to meet the home’s demand.

The electricity supplier would still charge the daily standing charge which could be modified to account for the additional work involved in managing the electricity account.

matt_drummer

They would be buying your exported electricity at the price they sell it to you at.

There are other costs involved that you are not taking into account.

MattMattMattUK

Richard741 said:

Instead of your electricity supplier paying for the electricity which the solar panels “export” to the national grid (if you have such an agreement).  Why don’t the suppliers just credit you with the exported kilowatts.   If that makes your total electricity consumption zero, any additional exported electricity is held in an “account” to offset the days that the solar panels do not generate enough to meet the home’s demand.

The electricity supplier would still charge the daily standing charge which could be modified to account for the additional work involved in managing the electricity account

Less than half the price per kWh you pay for electricity is the cost of the electricity yourself, that is why the rate you get when you sell is lower than the rate you pay. If you were credited a unit for each unit you exported you would be being subsidised by other users. 

[Deleted User]

Yes, as above.

However, what you can do if you are willing and able to manage your use and/or export is to choose appropriate tariffs that allow you to sell your exported energy for much the same as (or sometimes significantly more than) you pay for your imported energy. 

For example, I am on Octopus Agile for import and Octopus Outgoing Fixed for export. Agile is a time of use tariff so the amount you pay varies throughout the day, and it also follows market prices so the price at any given time varies from one day to the next. Octopus Outgoing fixed pays 15p/kWh for the duration of the contract (12 months) regardless of the time of day.

I started with Agile 63 days ago and since then I have paid an average of 6.090p/kWh for import  - considerably less than the 15p/kWh I have received for export. This isn't really representative because I'm a very low user at this time of year and there's recently been a "plunge pricing" event where Octopus actually pay you to use energy, but it does give you an indication of what's possible.