The business premises requires 11 kW of electricity to satisfy the electrical demand at a certain time. The Solar PV system is providing an output of 9 kW at this particular time.
In this scenario, the business will only pay for the 2 kW of electricity that the solar panels system is not providing.
When conditions are such that the business’ electrical demand is being fully satisfied by the solar panel system, excess produced electricity is automatically exported to the Nation Grid.
The owner of the Solar panel system will be paid for this TAX FREE via SEG payments.
The business premises requires 8 kW of electricity to satisfy the electrical demand at a certain time. The Solar PV system is providing an output of 12 kW at this particular time.
In this scenario, the business will be running purely on the Solar panel electricity and there is 4 kW of electricity that is surplus.
The surplus generated electricity will automatically flow into the National Grid via the electricity meter. This is known as Exported Electricity.
The smart meter will know that this is exported electricity and the amount exported is recorded in kW hours. Exactly the same way as purchased electricity is recorded.
Exported electricity is paid for via a government backed scheme called SEG (Smart Export Guarantee)
You are guaranteed to be paid and at generous rates. This will continue to be the case for decades to come. At present (2025) export payments are paid for at a general rate of 15 Pence / kWh.
The reason the UK Government is paying SEG Payments is because every single kW hour of electricity that is fed into the National Grid from Solar panel systems, its a kW hour of electricity that a power station does NOT have to produce.
This very simple operation is driving down the UK’s reliance on fossil fuel burning power stations and helping to reduce the environmentally harmful carbon emissions.
It also removes a percentage of the cost of expensive maintenance and up keep on the power stations so its better for them to pay us SEG payments and keep bigger outlays low.
