Feed-in Tariffs & Your Power Bill

A feed-in tariff (often abbreviated as FiT) is a rate your electricity retailer pays you for every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of solar electricity your system exports to the grid. It appears on your electricity bill as a credit, reducing the amount you owe. In simple terms: your panels produce more than your home needs, the excess flows to the grid, and you get paid for it.

Feed-in tariffs in Australia today are what's known as 'single-rate' or 'flat-rate' export tariffs — you receive the same rate per kWh regardless of when you export. Rates vary by state, territory, and electricity retailer, and they change over time. In many parts of Australia, current flat feed-in tariff rates sit somewhere in the range of 5–12 cents per kWh, though some retailers offer higher rates as part of competitive energy plans.

Why Is the Feed-in Rate Lower Than My Usage Rate?

This is the question most solar owners ask first, and it's a fair one. You might pay 28 cents per kWh to buy electricity from the grid, but only receive 6 cents per kWh for what you export. Why the gap? When you export power, your retailer sells it to other customers and also takes on costs including network charges, transmission fees, and retail margin. The feed-in tariff represents what's left after those costs — essentially the wholesale value of electricity. It's still real money, but it's less than the retail price. This is why self-consumption (using your solar directly) is more valuable than exporting: every kWh you use yourself saves you the full retail rate, whereas every kWh you export only earns the feed-in rate.

How Does It Appear on My Bill?

• Your bill will show a 'solar export' or 'feed-in' credit line, usually calculated as: total kWh exported x your feed-in tariff rate.
• This credit is subtracted from your total electricity charges for the billing period.
• If your credits exceed your charges in a quarter (common in summer for well-sized systems), some retailers carry the balance forward; others pay it out — check your retailer's policy.
• Your bill should also show how many kWh you exported — a useful number to track over seasons.

Time-Varying Export Tariffs: A Growing Option

Some energy retailers now offer time-varying export tariffs, where the rate you receive for exported power changes depending on the time of day. Exporting during high-demand periods — typically late afternoon and early evening, around 4pm to 8pm — can earn you a higher rate. This structure rewards households who can shift their consumption to the middle of the day (maximising self-consumption) and export more in the high-value window. If your system has a battery, time-varying export can also make charging and discharging decisions smarter and more profitable.

How to Compare Energy Plans for Solar Households

Not all electricity retailers treat solar customers the same way. When choosing or reviewing your energy plan as a solar owner, look at three things together: the usage rate (what you pay per kWh you draw from the grid), the daily supply charge (the fixed daily fee just for being connected), and the feed-in tariff rate. A plan with a slightly higher usage rate but a significantly higher feed-in rate might be better or worse depending on how much you export — which is why knowing your usage and export data from your inverter app is so valuable.

Maximising Your Feed-in Value

While self-consumption is always the priority, you can still optimise your feed-in earnings by timing discretionary appliance use to the middle of the day (reducing what you export at that time) and letting your panels export more during the late-afternoon window if you're on a time-varying plan. Battery owners can also program their battery to charge from solar midday and discharge in the evening, reserving some stored power for high-value export periods if their system supports it.

Feed-in tariffs are one piece of the solar savings puzzle, not the whole picture. They reward you for surplus production and help reduce your bill — but the real money in solar is in the electricity you use directly from your own roof.