Our Feed-in Tariff Comparison Tool lets you compare current export rates across major NSW retailers side by side — but its real purpose is to show why the financial logic of solar has shifted from "export as much as possible" to "use as much as possible yourself." Feed-in tariffs (FiTs) have been trending down across NSW for years, and that trend shows no sign of reversing.
Updated August 2026 for NSW residents. Retailer rates and incentive figures change frequently — confirm current values before making a decision.
Quick answer (TL;DR)
- FiTs are falling; some retailers now pay reduced or near-zero rates during midday solar peak.
- Retail import rates (30c+/kWh) sit well above export rates (a few c/kWh) — self-consumption wins.
- A battery turns low-value midday exports into high-value evening self-consumption.
- A well-sized battery lifts self-consumption from ~30% to 70–90%.
- Federal (~30% off) and NSW PDRS (~$1,100–$1,500) incentives are designed to support storage.
As more NSW households install solar, midday grid supply increasingly exceeds demand, and some retailers now apply reduced or even zero feed-in rates during peak solar hours specifically because the grid is already oversupplied at that time. This isn't a temporary dip — it reflects the underlying economics of a grid with high rooftop solar penetration, and it's part of why the value proposition of a plain solar-only system without storage has weakened over time.
| Comparison factor | What you'll see |
|---|---|
| Retailer-by-retailer rates | Current feed-in tariff rates from major NSW retailers, including any time-varying structures. |
| Flat vs time-varying tariffs | Whether a headline "best" rate applies all day or only during a narrow evening window. |
| Your likely export profile | An estimate of how much of your generation you'll export vs self-consume, based on system size and usage. |
Some retailers now pay different rates depending on the time of day you export, with lower or negative-adjacent rates around midday and better rates in the evening peak — which matters because a headline "best" feed-in rate can be misleading if it only applies when your system barely exports.
Here's the arithmetic that changes everything: in NSW, retail electricity rates typically sit well above even the better feed-in tariffs on offer. Every kilowatt-hour of solar you use directly in your home — rather than exporting and buying it back later — is worth substantially more to you than the export credit alone. A solar export credited at a few cents per kWh is worth far less than the 30-plus cents per kWh you'd otherwise pay to import that same amount in the evening.
This is precisely the gap a home battery is designed to close. Instead of exporting your midday surplus at a low feed-in rate and then buying expensive grid power back that evening, a battery stores that surplus and releases it when you actually need it — turning low-value exports into high-value self-consumed energy.
If you're comparing feed-in tariffs purely to chase the highest export rate, you're optimising for a shrinking part of the value equation. The more valuable question for most households in 2026 is: how much of my own generation can I use myself, either directly or via battery storage, before I need to export or import at all? Households with a well-sized battery routinely lift self-consumption from around 30% (typical for solar-only) to 70–90%, which has a far bigger impact on the annual bill than chasing an extra cent or two per kWh on export.
The current federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program (roughly 30% off installed battery cost via STCs) and the NSW PDRS battery incentive (up to $1,100–$1,500 upfront, stacking with the federal rebate) have specifically been designed around this shift — supporting storage rather than export, because storage is what actually reduces pressure on the grid at peak times while maximising the value of the solar you already generate.
(Figures current as of August 2026 — these incentives step down on a set schedule; confirm current values before quoting.)
Use the Feed-in Tariff Comparison Tool to check you're on a competitive plan for the export you do make — that's still worth doing. But if you're relying on export income as the main payback driver, run our Battery-Only Calculator or Solar & Battery Sizing Calculator alongside it, because for most Sydney households in the current tariff environment, storage delivers a bigger and more reliable return than exporting ever will again.
Compare NSW feed-in tariffs now, then try the Battery-Only Calculator to see what storage could add. Or call 0421 458 217.
