Smart Export Guarantee rates compared

Export rates are not published on a single comparison table the way import tariffs are, they change without much notice, and the headline figure often comes with a condition attached. This is how to compare them properly rather than picking the biggest number.

Because the rates move, this explains the method, with one supplier’s current pair of rates used as a worked illustration and dated so you can tell when it has aged.

Get the current rates from the source

Each supplier publishes its export tariff terms on its own site, and Ofgem publishes which suppliers are obliged to offer one: every supplier with 150,000 or more domestic customers. Start with supplier pages rather than an aggregator, because aggregator pages are frequently out of date and sometimes describe withdrawn offers.

For each offer, record four things:

1. The rate, in pence per kilowatt hour.
2. Whether it is fixed or tracks wholesale prices.
3. Whether it requires you to import from the same supplier.
4. What notice applies to a change of rate.

The fourth matters more than people expect. A market leading rate you can be moved off at short notice is worth less than a slightly lower one with a commitment behind it.

The two tiers you will see

In practice offers fall into two groups, and one supplier’s own published pair shows the gap. As of August 2026, Octopus pays 4.1p per kilowatt hour on its open SEG tariff and 12p on Outgoing, which requires importing from Octopus too.

Open offers, available whether or not you import from that supplier. These tend to be the lower rates, and they exist because the obligation requires something above zero to be offered, not something generous.

Conditional offers, available only if you also take your import electricity from the same supplier, and sometimes only if they installed the system. These carry the headline rates.

A near threefold gap inside a single supplier is typical of the market as a whole, which is precisely why comparing headline numbers across tiers is meaningless without the conditions attached to them.

Judging a conditional offer properly: a worked comparison

A conditional offer has to be evaluated as a package, because you are agreeing to an import tariff as well.

The arithmetic, for a household importing 5,000 kilowatt hours a year and exporting 2,000:

1. Package A, conditional. Export 2,000 kWh at 12p is £240. Import 5,000 kWh at the supplier’s standard rate, say the capped 26.11p: £1,306. Net position: £1,066 out.
2. Package B, split. Export 2,000 kWh at an open 4.1p is £82. Import on a cheaper fixed deal at, illustratively, 24.11p: £1,206. Net position: £1,124 out.
3. Package A wins by about £58, despite B’s cheaper import, because the export premium is worth £158.
4. Now make the independent import deal 4p cheaper instead of 2p: B’s import falls to £1,106 and its net position to £1,024, and the conditional package loses by about £42.

That is the whole lesson in one example. Most households import far more than they export, so a few pence on the import rate moves more money than several pence on the export rate. Which side wins depends on your actual volumes, and no headline rate can tell you without them.

Fixed against wholesale tracking

A tracking rate follows wholesale prices, so it pays more when the grid is short and less when it is not.

The awkward interaction for solar: you export most on bright, sunny days, which are often exactly the days when lots of other solar is exporting and wholesale prices are low. Tracking rates can therefore pay least when you have most to sell.

That is not a reason to avoid them. It is a reason to model them on your actual export profile rather than on an average rate, and to be sceptical of an annual figure derived by multiplying a headline tracking rate by your total export. A battery changes this calculus: stored export released into the evening peak is exactly what tracking rates reward, which is one of the few genuinely strong pairings of storage and tariff.

Conditions worth reading

• Whether the rate is guaranteed for a term or can move at will.
• Whether there is a cap on units paid at the headline rate.
• Whether the offer requires their own installation or certification route: the very top rates in the market are often installer tied, and the premium is really part of the installation’s price.
• How and when payment is made, and whether it is credit against your bill or cash.

What actually moves your bottom line

Two reminders that keep this in proportion.

Self consumption beats export. Because import rates sit at more than twice the better export rates, raising the share you use yourself is worth more per unit than any realistic improvement in export rate. Chase that first; the export scheme’s own design makes it the backstop, not the return.

Your import tariff is the bigger number. For most households, import is several times export by volume, as the worked example above shows. An export rate is worth optimising, after you have got the import side right.

Model the two rates separately

Whichever offer you land on, put the import rate and the export rate into the ROI calculator as two distinct inputs. A single blended figure will not show you the self consumption effect, which is the thing the whole decision turns on, and it is how optimistic quote projections quietly overstate export income.