Generation Tariff, where you received payment per unit of electricity you generated. The amount of money you can earn selling solar power back to the National Grid will depend on several interdependent factors.
How much money can you earn from the SEG? Based on the hours of daylight we have in the UK, the owner of a three-bedroom house with a 3.5 kWp solar panel system will earn £159 per year on average from the
How much money you can make from feed-in tariffs depends on your energy provider. They each have their own rate. For example, Origin Energy''s values range anywhere from 2 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. 13kW
In some cases, way more than you probably need. According to our calculations, the average-sized roof can produce about 21,840 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of solar electricity annually —about double the average U.S.
The short answer is—yes, many utility companies do pay for excess solar energy.However, the details vary depending on where you live and which utility company serves your area. How much you can earn by selling
Depending on how much you're able to export, those rates could make a substantial difference to how much you could earn. A household with a fairly typical solar panel set-up* could earn £69 more a year (£84 vs £15) with the highest-paying tariff rather than the lowest-paying. The STA maintains a list of SEG tariffs here.
Solar power can make you money from daylight, which is free for everyone. Thanks to growing global demand, there have been major improvements in solar panel technology in recent years and the quantity of panels being produced has increased significantly.
Additionally, Good Energy launched a new scheme in October 2024, which helps you get paid for the certificates (REGOs) produced when your solar panels generate electricity. Energy suppliers buy them to show that the electricity they sell is renewable.
Under the generation part of this scheme, you receive a fixed rate of income for each kWh of electricity you generate. The rate varies depending on the size of your system, the type of technology you use and the date of installation. Payment ranges between 7.1p/kWh for the largest systems and 16p/kWh for smaller ones.
Installing solar panels and signing up to a SEG tariff should help you save money in the long term. You can benefit in two ways: The biggest saving comes from buying less electricity from your energy supplier. Every unit (kWh) of self-generated power is one less unit of energy you have to buy from a supplier.
The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000. Based on the Energy Saving Trust's figures, it could take someone living in the middle of the country, in a typical home, anywhere between 12 and 17 years to recoup the costs of installing panels, based on current Energy Price Cap rates.
