Best Smart Export Guarantee Rates (UK 2026)

By Rob Hammond · Updated September 2026 · How we score

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The Smart Export Guarantee obliges big suppliers to pay you something for your exported electricity, and the word doing the work is “something”. Ofgem sets no minimum beyond “above zero”, so the tariffs on offer on 21 September 2026 run from 3p to 25p per kWh, a factor of more than eight, on identical panels exporting identical electricity. Every premium rate carries a condition, and the conditions are where the money actually is. Here is the whole table, read off the suppliers’ own pages, with what each one demands in return.

What the SEG obliges, and what it does not

The SEG replaced the Feed-in Tariff for installations commissioned after March 2019. Ofgem’s guidance for generators sets out the obligation in one sentence: “Licensed electricity suppliers are required to offer at least one SEG compliant export tariff to any generator with an eligible installation.”

Which suppliers? Ofgem’s page for electricity suppliers makes a supplier a Mandatory SEG Licensee “if they have at least 150,000 domestic electricity customers as at 31 December of the immediately preceding year”. Smaller suppliers may opt in voluntarily; they are not obliged to.

Now the part that decides your income. Ofgem: “The SEG licensees decide exactly how they want their SEG export tariff to work in terms of its rate, type and length. However, the tariff must be greater than zero pence per kilowatt hour exported at all times.”

That is the entire rate regulation. There is no floor, no index, no requirement that the rate bear any relation to the wholesale price or to what the supplier charges you to import. A supplier that pays 3p has met its obligation exactly as fully as one paying 25p. Ofgem’s own text goes on to say so plainly: “Suppliers can compete to offer attractive terms and, if the tariff becomes uncompetitive, you may wish to consider switching to another supplier.”

The eligibility side is tighter. Your installation must be in Great Britain, be one of solar PV, wind, hydro, anaerobic digestion or micro-CHP, and have a total installed capacity of no more than 5MW (50kW for micro-CHP). You cannot hold a SEG tariff with two licensees at once, and you cannot take SEG export payments and FiT export payments on the same installation.

The rates table

Every row below was read on the date in the last column, from the supplier page linked in the tariff name. Rates are what the page published that day; several of these tariffs are explicitly variable, and suppliers reprice them without a public announcement. Sorted by rate, highest first.

Read the “import tariff required” column before the rate column. 7 of the tariffs here pay 13p or more; 4 of those are sold only to that supplier’s own electricity customers, and 2 also require a battery. Several of the top rates are really installation deals rather than tariffs: Good Energy’s, OVO’s, EDF’s and E.ON Next’s best rates each require that the supplier fitted the kit, which is a condition you meet at the point of buying an array, not one you can switch onto afterwards.

The highest rate here that asks nothing about who supplies your electricity is So Energy’s So Bright Export at 20p, fixed for 12 months, whose only stated conditions are an MCS certificate or equivalent, G98/G99 paperwork, proof of ownership and a smart meter. Below that, E.ON Next’s Next Flex Export at 6p is the best open rate with no fixed term, though it is variable.

Some tariffs are not in the table, and it matters why. ScottishPower’s SmartGen pages return HTTP 403 to us, so its rates are not checked here rather than copied from a comparison site. Utilita’s SEG help page publishes no rate. And two Octopus products, Agile Outgoing and Octopus Flux, price half-hourly against wholesale, so there is no flat number to put in a column; Flux additionally requires “a solar system and home battery” and that you are “already on an import and export tariff, both with Octopus Energy”. Business and social-landlord tariffs (British Gas Export Extra aside, which we kept because its 15kW threshold is worth knowing) are also out.

Outgoing Octopus by region

Outgoing Octopus is published per grid region, so the Outgoing Octopus page carries a table for all fourteen, refreshed weekly from Octopus’s API (last on 2026-09-28).

For every Octopus smart tariff with its regional rates, see energy tariffs.

Why the export rate changes the sizing answer

Every kWh your array generates is worth one of two things. Used in the house it saves you the retail rate, 26.32p/kWh on Ofgem’s cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026. Exported it earns your export rate. So a self-used kWh is worth 2.2 times an exported one at 12p, and 8.8 times an exported one at 3p.

Put that on the worked example from how many solar panels do I need: a 4.4kWp array, 4,360kWh a year, £7,238 fitted, 50% used at home. That leaves 2,180kWh exported:

The array is identical in all three rows. The roof is identical. £371 a year separates the top row from the bottom, and the only thing that changed is a form you fill in. That is more than the difference between a south-facing and an east-facing roof on the same house.

It also inverts the usual advice about self-consumption. Are solar panels worth it works the payback across three self-use rates at 12p and at 3p: at 12p the whole range from a poor self-use rate to a good one spans 9.8 to 7.8 years, but at 3p it spans 14.9 to 9.1 years. On a poor export tariff you must chase self-consumption, because exporting is nearly worthless. On a good one, timing your washing machine barely registers. Run your own numbers in the solar payback calculator, which takes the export rate as an input for exactly this reason.

The same logic decides whether a battery earns its keep. Storing a kWh rather than exporting it is worth the gap between 26.32p and your export rate: 23.32p on a 3p tariff, 14.32p at 12p, and only 6.32p at 20p. A better export deal makes a battery less attractive for solar-shifting, not more, and the arithmetic is in are solar batteries worth it.

What you need before you can apply

Ofgem’s generator guidance lists three things, and every supplier page we read repeats them.

1. Certification. For PV up to 50kW, “applicants will be asked to demonstrate that their installation and installer are suitably certified. … This may be a Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) certificate, but the SEG also recognises that other schemes may be equivelant [sic] to MCS.” EDF and E.ON Next both name Flexi-Orb as the alternative they accept. If your array was fitted by an uncertified installer, no SEG tariff is open to you, which is the single strongest argument for using an MCS installer in the first place.
2. A meter that reads export half-hourly. Ofgem: the export “must be metered. That meter must be capable of taking half-hourly measurements”. Octopus specifies “almost all SMETS2 meters and most SMETS1”; E.ON Next requires “a smart export meter and consent for half hourly consumption data collection”. EDF will take quarterly manual readings if the meter cannot send them automatically, which is the exception rather than the rule.
3. An export MPAN. A separate 13-digit number from your import MPAN, created by your Distribution Network Operator on the supplier’s request. Octopus’s own timeline puts the DNO step at 1–4 weeks and calls it “the longest part of the application process”. Budget for it.

Most suppliers also want your G98 or G99 connection paperwork and proof you own the system, and OVO and E.ON Next want a schematic diagram if you have a battery.

One misconception worth killing: your export supplier does not have to be your import supplier. Ofgem is explicit that “your SEG licensee can be a different company to your import supplier”, and you may hold a SEG tariff with one licensee at a time. The constraint is commercial. Look at the table again: every rate above 12p bar one asks either for that supplier’s import tariff or for the installation contract, so taking a premium export rate usually does mean moving your import, and moving your import means re-running the sums on your import tariff too. A 20p export rate bought with a bad standing charge is not obviously a win. Our grants and schemes page covers the SEG alongside the other support you may be eligible for.

When the answer is no, and the traps

A premium rate bundled with an expensive import tariff. The export rate is quoted per kWh exported; the import rate is charged per kWh imported, and for most households the import volume is far larger. On our worked example the whole export income at 20p is £436 a year against roughly 2,180kWh of self-use and whatever else the house buys. A supplier-only export tariff that moves your import to a rate 2p worse costs a 3,400kWh household £68 a year, eating a fifth of the gain. Do the subtraction before you switch, not after.

“Up to” rates that need a battery, an installer, or both. Good Energy’s 25p and OVO’s 20p are real, and both require that their company installed the system: Good Energy’s needs solar and a battery, OVO’s pays 15p if it installed panels alone. EDF’s 18p requires buying the kit from EDF after 2 March 2026. These are not export tariffs so much as discounts attached to an installation contract, and they should be compared as part of the installation quote, not as tariffs you can switch to on a Tuesday. If the installation costs £2,000 more than a local MCS installer, the extra 8p/kWh on 2,180kWh, or £174 a year, takes eleven and a half years to recover it.

A peak rate that your generation cannot reach. Prime Outgoing Octopus pays 16p between 16:00 and 19:00 and 9p the rest of the day. Unshaded solar exports around solar noon; without a battery to hold the surplus until four o’clock, most of your kWh land in the 9p band and you have taken a pay cut against the flat 12p. The same trap applies to any wholesale-linked tariff: uncapped upside is also uncapped downside.

And the trap that applies to the whole page: check the date column. These are commercial products with no regulated floor beyond zero. Several are explicitly variable: EDF promises only “at least 5 days” written notice of a change, and Octopus’s flat tariff says rates “can change, but we’ll always give you plenty of notice”. A table of export rates is a photograph, not a contract. Treat the checked date on each row as part of the number, and re-read the supplier’s page before you apply.

If you have not installed yet, start from the solar hub and size the array first, because the export rate changes the payback but it does not change how many panels fit on your roof.

All prices, rates and figures were checked on 21 September 2026. The price cap is reset quarterly, so re-check before committing.

What’s changed (changelog)

• 21 September 2026. First publication. Rates read from the supplier pages of Octopus Energy, British Gas, E.ON Next, EDF, OVO, So Energy and Good Energy on 21 September 2026, and held as data in exportTariffs.ts so the table and the grants entry cannot drift apart. ScottishPower is recorded as not checked because its site returns HTTP 403; Utilita publishes no rate; Agile Outgoing and Octopus Flux are excluded because neither publishes a flat rate. No rate on this page comes from a comparison site.

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