What are smart export payments?
By generating electricity, you’re making Britain greener. That’s because all the electricity you don’t use at home feeds into the national grid, contributing to the total amount of renewable power.
You’re paid a set rate for this power through your Feed-in Tariff contract, based on an estimate that you export 50% of what you generate.
Now, thanks to smart meters that can send us accurate meter readings, we can pay you for the actual amount of electricity you export – not just an estimate. This is called smart export, and it means you could earn more from your electricity, depending on how much you feed into the grid.
What’s so good about smart export payments?
- Have the opportunity to earn more for the power you send to the grid – get paid for the actual amount of electricity you export, on the same unit rates as your existing Feed-in Tariff contract. The more you export, the more you earn.
- Have access to new tariffs in the future – we’re developing new tariffs to pay people for the electricity they generate and send back to the grid.
- Have a clearer picture of how much you export – know exactly how much 100% renewable electricity you’re feeding into the national grid, along with how much it’s worth.
Will smart export payments affect the rest of my FiT payment?
The majority of your FiT payment is your generation payment. This pays you a set rate for every unit of electricity you generate, even if you use it at home.
Your generation payment will continue to be paid in the same way that it is currently. You’ll keep receiving reminders to submit your quarterly FiT meter readings, which you can submit via your online account.
The only part of your FiT payment that will change is your export payment. This makes up a smaller proportion of the overall amount you receive. Instead of being based on a deemed rate of 50% of what you generate, being on smart export means you’ll get paid for the actual amount of electricity you send to the grid.
Smart export payments: your questions answered
It is important that you continue to submit generation meter readings each quarter, but you won’t need to submit export readings. The easiest ways to submit your generation meter readings is via the online account or app.
We are not able to remotely collect your generation meter readings for FIT Generation Payments. If you don’t provide these, your payments might be affected.
Your smart meter will provide us with half hourly and daily reads to facilitate your export payments. If your smart meter stops communicating with us for any reason, we will reach out to you to either arrange your meter to be fixed, or to request a manual read of your meter.
Being on smart export gives you the opportunity to earn more for the power you export. If you have a solar or wind installation and you send more than 50% of what you generate to the grid, or if you have a hydro installation and you send more than 75% of what you generate to the grid, you’ll receive a higher payment than you currently do on deemed payments.
However, if you use more than the assumed percentages above, this means you’ll be exporting less than the current deemed amounts and will start earning less.
Moving to smart export payments also opens up new export tariffs in the future, which may pay you a higher rate for the electricity you send to the grid compared to your current Feed-in Tariff rates.
No – you already have a generation meter and a smart meter. This is all that is needed to move to smart export payments.
Deemed payment is a term used to describe how export payments are calculated, if they’re not based on smart meter readings. Currently, you receive quarterly export payments for either 50% (wind and solar) or 75% (hydro) of the total amount of electricity you generate. This is because the typical customer will export roughly this percentage to the grid.
Smart export payments use readings from your smart meter to accurately record how much electricity you actually export. This means you will start getting paid for the actual amount of electricity you export, rather than 50% (or 75% for hydro) of what you generate.
Your Feed-in Tariff payments are comprised of two elements:
- Generation payment – this makes up the majority of your payment and will not change.
- Export payments – this is a separate payment, currently based on you exporting a deemed 50% (or 75% for hydro) of the electricity you generate to the grid. Smart export means you’ll get paid for the actual amount of electricity you export, rather than this deemed amount.
Your export meter will remain in the FiT Scheme, meaning that your FiT Export tariff will be applied to your export meter readings. The export tariff price will continue to be set by Ofgem.
You will continue to receive your Generation Remittance as normal; and you will receive a separate Remittance for your Export.
No – you will receive your payments on the same date.
No. Ofgem requires that Feed-in Tariff customers must be paid for the actual amount of power exported to the grid as soon as possible. This is stipulated in their Guidance for Licensed Electricity Suppliers.
You will move onto smart export payments as soon as they’re rolled out to all customers that fit the criteria. So, once you start receiving smart export payments you won’t be able to go back onto deemed payments.
We will notify you when we make the amendments to your Account.
No – this is smart metered export, the mandatory way of paying export payments to Feed-in Tariff customers that have a smart meter.
However, with the FiT scheme now closed to new generators, we are developing new export tariffs designed to enable homes and businesses to continue to be paid fairly for the renewable electricity they generate. We’ll share more detail on this, and how to sign up, soon.
These rates are correct as of 1st April 2023 until 31st March 2024
- 6.79p p/kWh
- If the Site is PV (Solar), and was commission after 1st August 2012
- If the Site isn’t PV (Wind, Hydro or AD), and was commission after 1st December 2012
- 4.82p p/kWh
- If the Site is PV (Solar), and was commissioned between 1st April 2010 and 31st July 2012
- If the Site isn’t PV (Wind, Hydro or AD), and was commissioned between 1st April 2010 and 30th November 2012
These rates are just for Smart Export, not Solar Savings, and change each April subject to RPI.
Yes. Please let us know the date you move out and the final meter readings for your generation and export meters so we can provide you with an accurate final payment.
Additional FAQs for our business feed-in tariff customers
There is no need to sign a new contract or to agree to new Terms and Conditions. Your existing Terms and Conditions will remain in place.
No, we will be able to identify which properties have a Smart Meter on site. We will only be able to move these sites over to Smart Export payments. Any remaining sites in your portfolio will not be capable of tracking the exported power to the Grid and will only be moved over from deemed payments once they have had a Smart Meter installed.
It is your responsibility to update the occupier of this change, in particular the changes to our data collection method and the data processing. You should inform all occupiers in your portfolio that Good Energy will begin automatically collecting data from their Smart Meters for the purpose of accurately measuring and paying you for the volume of electricity exported to the grid.
If a smart meter at your site becomes unresponsive, then Good Energy will take the following steps:
- If we are unable to pull and validate an export reading in time for the claim, then we will need to submit the most recent unclaimed validated reading we have on record.
- If we cannot access your smart meter data and have no recent unclaimed validated readings, we may request a manual reading taken from the smart meter.
- If we do not have any validated readings from the meter, and are unable to retrieve a manual reading in time for the claim, we will not be able to submit it in the claim for payment that quarter. We will contact you to inform you if this occurs with one of your sites.
If an export read is not obtained, either automatically or manually, you will receive a delayed payment in the next payment quarter following our receipt of a valid read. We will still be able to submit the generation reading in the claim for payment if that is received and valid.
If the meter is unresponsive the occupier would need to get the meter fixed or replaced by their import supplier. Please contact us to confirm once the smart meter has been fixed.
We can only validate that any smart meters at your sites are communicating correctly ahead moving to smart export payments, if these sites are also on an energy supply with Good Energy. Where this is not the case, we will contact you to request export meter readings.