Solar Feed-In Tariff Guide 2026

Your solar inverter sends excess power back to the grid through your smart meter. The retailer credits your bill at the FiT rate for each kWh exported. In Australia, almost all current plans use net metering: you are paid only for surplus power that your home does not use at the moment of generation. This is the single most important concept in solar economics — every kWh you self-consume saves you your full retail rate (25-30 cents/kWh), while every kWh you export earns only the FiT (5-12 cents/kWh). So self-consumed solar is worth 2 to 6 times more than exported solar. A typical 6.6kW system exports about 55-65% of its generation if nobody is home during the day, and 30-40% if someone is home running appliances. The FiT appears as a line-item credit on your bill, usually labelled "Solar feed-in credit" or "Exported energy." Your smart meter separately tracks import and export — you cannot net them off before billing.

Before 2017, NSW households could lock in premium FiTs of 44-60 cents/kWh under the Solar Bonus Scheme. Those generous contracts have all now expired. The current regulated minimum FiT is set by state governments or the AER, and it has been drifting down for a decade as wholesale electricity prices during daylight hours have collapsed — ironically due to the success of rooftop solar flooding the grid. From 2021 to 2026, average voluntary FiTs in NSW dropped from 8-10 cents to 5-7 cents. Victoria's minimum flat FiT fell to just 0.04 cents/kWh in 2025 before the state government intervened. The trend is clear: relying on FiT revenue to justify a solar installation is no longer viable. The real savings come from self-consuming your solar generation and avoiding purchasing electricity at retail prices. Treat the FiT as a bonus, not the business case.

Shift as much usage as possible into daylight hours. Set dishwashers, washing machines, pool pumps, and hot water heat pumps to run between 10am and 3pm — that is when your panels produce peak power. An average dishwasher cycle uses 1-1.5kWh: running it on solar saves 27 cents versus exporting and earning 7 cents. A pool pump running 6 hours at 1kW consumes 6kWh/day: on solar it costs nothing; on grid power that is roughly $1.60/day or $584/year. Heat pump hot water systems (Sanden, Reclaim, iStore) are the single best solar companion — they use 3-4kWh/day and can be timer-set for midday operation, effectively giving you free hot water for 9 months of the year. If you are not home during daylight hours, use delay-start timers on all major appliances. Some inverters (Fronius, SolarEdge) offer relay-controlled smart switching that automatically diverts excess solar to hot water or other loads rather than exporting at a low FiT. The goal is not maximising export — it is minimising import.

Most single-phase homes in Australia are limited to 5kW inverter capacity and roughly 10kW per phase of export. If you have a larger system (10kW+ of panels), you will need either export limiting (your inverter throttles export to stay under the limit) or a three-phase upgrade ($1,500-3,000). Some DNSPs now impose zero-export requirements in areas with high solar penetration — parts of regional QLD and SA are leading this trend. Before upgrading your solar, check with your DNSP about any export constraints on your street. A battery elegantly solves the zero-export problem: store surplus instead of exporting for a pittance, then use it during the evening peak. The economics of adding a battery improve substantially when FiTs are low and export is restricted — the avoided grid cost ($0.25-0.30/kWh) dwarfs the lost FiT ($0.05-0.07/kWh).

VPP programs (Tesla Energy Plan, Origin Loop, AGL VPP) aggregate home batteries into a virtual grid resource. In exchange for letting the VPP operator discharge your battery during grid stress events, you get higher FiTs, signup bonuses, and sometimes free or heavily subsidised batteries. Tesla Energy Plan participants can access retail rates around 19-22 cents/kWh with strong FiT incentives. Origin Loop offers $1 per kWh exported during grid events plus a $200 signup credit. These deals change frequently — check current VPP offers at least annually. Looking ahead, expect FiTs to continue trending toward wholesale passthrough (real-time market rates) rather than fixed rates. On sunny mild days when rooftop solar floods the grid, wholesale prices can go negative — meaning you would theoretically pay to export. Amber Electric already passes through negative wholesale prices to customers. A battery and smart energy management will become essential for solar households, not optional.