Solar export prices
When your solar power is worth more used at home and when it is worth selling, half hour by half hour, with Octopus Agile Outgoing beside the Agile import price.
Prices differ by region.
What to do with your solar today
- Prices: Octopus Energy public API, London (region C). Products are found from Octopus's current product list.
- Solar: NESO demand data, embedded solar forecast (or outturn, once published) over embedded solar capacity, for Great Britain as a whole.
Export and import prices, today
Agile Outgoing pays you for each kWh you send to the grid; Agile import is what each kWh you use from the grid costs, so it is what your own solar saves. London, pence per kWh.
- Octopus Energy public API: Agile Outgoing and Agile standard unit rates, and the Outgoing Octopus flat rate. Import prices are Octopus’s figures including VAT; export prices carry no VAT.
Agile Outgoing or the flat rate, last 28 days
What a solar roof in London would have earned from export on each tariff.
- Prices: Octopus Energy public API, region C. Export rates carry no VAT.
- Generation: NESO demand data, embedded solar generation divided by NESO's embedded solar capacity for each half hour: what one kWp of Britain's small solar made. Over 2021 to 2025 that came to 862 kWh per kWp a year, so each half hour is scaled by your roof's yield over 862.
- Yield: PVGIS 5.3 (EU Joint Research Centre), unshaded roof at 35°, 14% system losses, central London: 988 kWh per kWp a year facing south; 93% of that facing south-east or south-west and 78% facing east or west. Shading, dirt and older panels give less.
- Self-use: that share of every half hour's output is used at home and the rest exported. Real homes use more in the morning and evening, so midday export is a little higher than this assumes.
Questions
An Octopus export tariff that pays a different price for each half hour, set from the day-ahead wholesale price by a published formula. Prices for the next day appear at about 16:00, with Agile import prices, and are usually highest from 16:00 to 19:00. Octopus says that when wholesale prices fall below zero, Agile Outgoing stops just above zero (Outgoing FAQs).
Octopus asks for an Octopus import supply, a smart meter that sends half-hourly export readings, and an export MPAN, which Octopus requests from your network operator. It also asks for your MCS certificate and the network operator notification and reply. Without MCS, Octopus may still accept a system for a £250 assessment with an electrical installation certificate, building regulations sign-off (not in Scotland) and the network operator’s acceptance letter. Only some smart import tariffs pair with it (export without MCS).
Ofgem’s rule that larger suppliers offer at least one export tariff, always above zero, to solar and other small low-carbon systems up to 5 MW. Octopus’s SEG tariff pays a flat rate, shown above, and is open to people who buy their electricity from another supplier. Outgoing Octopus pays more but needs an Octopus import supply (Ofgem).
Almost always use it. A unit you use saves the price you would pay to import it, VAT included, while a unit you sell earns the export price, which is usually lower. Run the dishwasher, washing machine or car charger when the sun is strongest, and sell what is left.
Usually. It stores spare midday solar for the evening, when import prices peak, so each unit saves the evening price less what the battery loses, often about a tenth. With Agile Outgoing it can also sell stored power in the 16:00 to 19:00 peak. Whether it pays back depends on its price and life, not on one day.
Usually not, for a household. HMRC says no income tax arises on payments for electricity from domestic microgeneration at your home, as long as you do not mean to generate much more than you use; up to about 20% more is fine. Rented-out or business property is treated differently. Households do not charge VAT on export, and these rates carry none (HMRC BIM40520).