Feed-in Tariff (FIT): still receiving payments?

Around 900,000 UK households are still receiving Feed-in Tariff payments. If you are one of them, you have two payment streams — a generation tariff and an export tariff — locked in at rates set when you registered. Those rates cannot be reduced and your supplier must continue paying them for your full 20-year term. This page covers what you are owed, how to check your payments, how FIT interacts with battery storage, and what to do when your term expires.

What the Feed-in Tariff paid

FIT had two components, both paid by your energy supplier on a quarterly basis:

Generation tariff

Paid for every kWh your system generates, regardless of whether you use that electricity at home or export it to the grid. This was the element that made FIT so generous — you were paid for all generation, not just what you exported. Generation is measured by a meter reading or estimated if you have a non-export meter.

Export tariff

Paid for electricity you export to the grid. Most FIT installations were set up on a deemed export basis: Ofgem assumed you exported 50% of your generation regardless of what you actually exported, and your supplier paid you accordingly. A smaller number of installations had metered export, where the actual exported amount was recorded.

Your locked-in rate

Your FIT generation tariff was set at the time of your accreditation and is index-linked to RPI, meaning it rises slightly each year with inflation. The rate you were originally set on depended on when you installed and the size of your system. A rough guide to generation tariff rates by accreditation year (before any RPI uplifts):

• 2010 (April): up to 41.3p/kWh for systems under 4kWp
• 2012: around 16p/kWh
• 2015: around 12p/kWh
• 2017: around 4.1p/kWh
• 2018–2019 (final year): around 3.8–3.9p/kWh

Households who joined in 2010–2012 locked in the most favourable rates and are, in many cases, still earning more from generation payments than they would earn from the SEG export rate. If you are unsure of your rate, check your energy supplier's annual FIT statement or contact them directly.

FIT vs the Smart Export Guarantee

FIT and the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) are mutually exclusive for export. You cannot claim SEG export payments while you are also receiving FIT export payments for the same installation — that would be double-counting the same exported electricity. Existing FIT participants do not need (and cannot) sign up for SEG until their FIT term expires.

The key practical difference for existing participants: FIT pays for generation (all output), while SEG only pays for export(what you don't use). Households on early high-rate FIT tariffs are typically better off staying on FIT for the remainder of their term rather than switching to SEG — there is no mechanism to switch early without losing FIT accreditation.

Can I add battery storage while on FIT?

Yes, with one important condition. Ofgem confirmed in 2019 that adding a battery to an existing FIT-registered installation does not affect your generation tariff, provided the battery only stores solar-generated electricity — it must not export electricity that originated from the grid.

In practice this means your battery must be configured so that it only charges from your solar panels and cannot back-charge from a grid import. Most modern hybrid inverters and battery systems support this configuration. If you are on a deemed-export arrangement (the standard 50% assumption), your export payment calculation does not change — Ofgem still assumes 50% of generation is exported, even if your battery is consuming some of it.

If you are on metered export (actual readings), adding a battery will genuinely reduce your metered export and therefore your export payment — this is the correct outcome since you are exporting less. But your generation tariff remains unaffected.

What happens when FIT expires

Your FIT term runs for 20 years from your accreditation date. For the most common cohort:

• Installed and accredited in 2010: FIT expires 2030
• Installed and accredited in 2015: FIT expires 2035
• Installed and accredited in 2019: FIT expires 2039

When your FIT term ends, you will need to register for the Smart Export Guarantee if you want to continue receiving export payments. There is no automatic transition — you actively sign up with a participating SEG supplier. The process is straightforward: you provide your MCS installation certificate number and a meter capable of measuring half-hourly exports (most SMETS2 smart meters qualify). You can shop around for the best SEG rate independently of your electricity supplier.

Your solar panels and generation do not stop when FIT expires — you continue self-consuming your solar as before. The only thing that stops is the generation and export payments.

What to do if your payments seem wrong

If your FIT payments look lower than expected, the most common causes are:

• Meter readings not submitted or submitted late — contact your supplier to update
• Annual RPI uplift not applied — check your rate against the previous year's statement
• Supplier administrative error — raise a formal complaint if the issue is not resolved

Ofgem is the scheme administrator and ultimate regulator. If your supplier does not resolve a FIT dispute, you can escalate to the Ofgem FIT team or the Energy Ombudsman.