03 Sep What can the Smart Export Guarantee do for you?
What is the Smart Energy Guarantee?
The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) pays customers for renewable electricity they have generated and put into the grid. This can be solar, but also other types of renewable generation like wind and hydro power.
Big energy companies are mandated to offer a SEG from the beginning of 2020 and some of the newer and greener electricity suppliers have also created their own schemes as well as it gives them an opportunity to buy more renewable energy for their clients.
The scheme is a follow on from the old Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme which had an export payment element to it, but which no longer operates in the UK.
How does it work?
The SEG only pays for the export (or excess generation) that spills back into the grid. This was deemed to be fairer to residential renewable generators who had no market to sell their power to the grid like their utility scale counterparts, without the SEG a homeowner who invests in solar would have been giving power to the grid for free.
The SEG now only pays for the excess generation which spills over into the grid. This excess generation will support the grid, and UK Government’s commitment the 2050 net zero target.
There are lots of organisations who will buy the units of electricity that you are putting into the grid, which they will then use to trade in aggregate on the wholesale market. There is also a large spread in pricing, from between 1p/kWh and 5.6p/kWh, and contract length, so it pays to shop around.
The reason for the spread is that the rules the government created was that it was mandatory for major utilities to offer a SEG, but that it only had to be a minimum of 0.01p. What you can see from the table below is the latest offers we can see in the market (at the time of writing), as you will see there are some attractive offers from some companies who have recognised there is a benefit in buying power at a reasonable rate in order for them to compete with green providers which the public and businesses are increasingly turning to in larger numbers.
| RANK | SUPPLIER | TARIFF RATE |
| 1 | Social Energy^ | 5.6p |
| 2 | Octopus Energy | 5.5p |
| – | E.ON Energy | 5.5p |
| 4 | Bulb Energy | 5.38p |
| 5 | OVO Energy | 4.0p |
| – | ScottishPower | 4.0p |
| 7 | SSE | 3.5p |
| – | EDF Energy | 3.5p |
| – | Shell Energy | 3.5p |
| – | Green Network Energy | 3.5p |
| 11 | British Gas | 3.2p |
| 12 | E.ON Energy | 3.0p |
| – | Utilita | 3.0p |
| – | Avro | 3.0p |
| 15 | Utility Warehouse | 2.0p |
| 16 | E | 1.0p |
Pricing correct at August 2020, and subject to change.
Note that you can have a separate supplier arrangement for your SEG, to your normal metered consumption – just like gas and electricity. So you can buy power from one source and get your SEG payment for your power you generate and sell to the grid from another.
How we can help
For commercial or large residential users, we can review your generation and meter readings and advise you about the options for export tariffs and SEG.
Want to know more?
If you think that you may be able to benefit from the Smart Energy Guarantee (SEG), we’d be happy to talk you through some of the finer detail around technology types and eligibility criteria.
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