Export income

SEG export rates now span 1p to 32p per kWh, worth checking before assuming your MCS install is still on a good deal

There are around thirty live Smart Export Guarantee tariffs on the market as of July 2026, and Octopus Outgoing, previously the cleanest no-battery-required flat rate, dropped from 15p to 12p per kWh on 1 March 2026, a 20% cut with no change on the homeowner's end.

29 July 2026 · Source: EnergyPlus

The headline range, 1p to 32.17p per kWh, tells you almost nothing on its own, since the top rate only pays that during peak export windows and requires both a battery and a matching import tariff to unlock. For a Herne Bay, Beltinge and Greenhill household with an MCS install and no battery, the genuinely comparable figure is the flat no-conditions tariff, and that comparison has gotten worse this year, not better.

The concrete example is Octopus Outgoing, which cut its flat rate from 15p to 12p per kWh on 1 March 2026, a 20% reduction in export income for anyone on that tariff with no change to their panels, their usage, or anything else, purely a supplier repricing decision on standard notice. If you registered for SEG on a Herne Bay rooftop system more than a year ago and haven't checked the rate since, this is a direct prompt to look.

The current best no-battery flat rate is Good Energy Solar Savings Exclusive at 25p per kWh, more than double what Octopus Outgoing now pays. On a typical CT6 household exporting 1,000 to 1,500 kWh a year off a south-facing Walmer or Kingsdown roof, that gap is a genuine £130 to £195 a year for identical panels and identical export volume.

Watch for further repricing rather than assuming July 2026 rates hold. SEG suppliers can move rates on short notice in either direction, and with roughly thirty live tariffs competing for the same export volume, the table is more volatile than a year ago. If you're MCS-certified through us and haven't compared tariffs in the last six months, that's five minutes on the Ofgem SEG supplier list well spent before assuming your current deal is still the best one going.

Read the original: EnergyPlus. Commentary is Herne Bay Solar's own editorial view; the original reporting is credited to its publisher.

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