Energy firms urged to accelerate solar export tariff offers

Electricity suppliers have been urged to offer an export tariff to households, which generates surplus electricity from solar devices, in advance of the government deadline.

STA (Solar Trade Association) chief executive Chris Hewett has sent an open letter to the Big 6 and other electricity suppliers calling for export tariff offers to be put to solar households before the government’s target of 1 January 2020, after which they will be obliged to under the government’s Smart Export Guarantee (SEG).

Under the recently unveiled rules for the scheme, all suppliers with 150,000 or more domestic customers will be required to offer at least one tariff for small-scale power exports to the grid from New Year’s Day next year.

However, more than three months after the closure of the administered export tariff, the previous scheme that gave households possessing solar devices the opportunity to sell surplus electricity to the Grid, only Octopus Energy has offers open to all solar homes exporting power.

The hiatus resulting from the cancellation of the tariff has been blamed for plunging rates of household solar power installations.

Hewett said: “There is a real appetite in the UK for domestic solar and storage; surveys show three in five people are keen to install these technologies on and in their properties at some point in the future, and our new online advice for consumers on the Smart Export Guarantee is already attracting thousands of visitors every month and being signposted by consumer groups.

“Government policy in recent years has caused the domestic solar and storage markets to slow. Policy now relies squarely on the market stepping forward to provide a fair export price for those investing in solar power. As the UK moves towards net zero and the ‘smart’ transformation of our energy sector we hope that suppliers will see good strategic reasons for accelerating meaningful offers and we urge them to do so as soon as possible. We want competition to develop to buy the power solar homes put onto the grid and, if suppliers are not able to enter this market, we want to hear from them about any barriers they are experiencing.”

The STA has estimated that households with solar devices can expect to save around £400 a year through a combination of lower electricity bills and income generated by power exports.

Those who are typically at home during the day, like retirees and flexible workers, have the scope to save even more because they are consuming when the solar devices are generating most electricity, the STA said.