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Getting the most from your system now
The tariff pays what it pays and you cannot change it. What you can change is how much of your own electricity you use, and for most households that is where the money now is.
The short answer. Your generation payment is fixed, on everything the panels produce. And for the 780,554 installations on deemed export, 90 per cent of the scheme, your export payment is fixed too: it assumes half your generation is exported whatever you actually do. So every unit you keep and use yourself is a saving on top of the tariff, not taken from it.
Why this is true, and where it is not
On deemed export you are paid to export half your generation even if you export almost none of it, which means self-consumption and the tariff do not compete: you collect the generation payment, you collect the deemed export payment, and on top of both you avoid buying the units you use yourself. See deemed or metered export for the mechanism.
It does not hold on metered export, where using more reduces the measured export you are paid for. If you are on a metered arrangement, the trade-off is real and worth doing the sums on.
The practical moves
Shift heavy loads into daylight. Timers on the washing machine, dishwasher and immersion heater so they run when the panels are generating turn would-be export into avoided import. This is the cheapest change and it costs nothing to try.
A hot water diverter. Sends surplus generation to the immersion heater instead of the grid, storing it as hot water. A modest bit of kit that targets exactly the surplus.
A battery. Time-shifts daytime generation into the evening. On deemed export it does not cost you any export payment, which is what makes it add up. See the battery guide.
An electric car or a heat pump. Large daytime loads that soak up generation you would otherwise export. Charging or heating in the middle of the day is the win.
The value of each unit you use yourself is simply the price you would have paid to import it, which is your electricity unit rate. We deliberately do not put a pounds-per-year figure on any of this, because it depends on your rate, your usage and your generation, and a made-up number would be worse than none.
Adding a battery or panels is a separate decision with its own rules: a battery does not touch your accreditation, but adding panels can, as adding panels explains. And both are cheaper right now than they were, because of the 0% VAT on installing them.
The deemed export rule is as published by Ofgem in its Feed-in Tariffs guidance for generators. Export status counts from the Ofgem Feed-in Tariff installation report of 2025-12-31. Information only, and not financial advice.