It’s a completely fair question. It can feel like a raw deal to see a gap between what you pay for a unit of power and what you get back for exporting…a unit of power!
But there are good reasons. Let’s break them down.
The main reason for the difference is out of our hands. Think of it like ordering sushi on a takeaway app
When you buy: You pay for your salmon nigiri, but you also pay a delivery fee. The restaurant doesn’t keep this: it goes to the driver and platform.
When you (the sushi master) sell: You get paid for the sushi; you don’t get paid the delivery fee (after all, you didn’t do the delivering).
Your import rate is loaded with these "delivery fees", such as government levies, taxes and the cost of maintaining and upgrading the National Grid. When you export, you’re selling the raw energy, free of those costs.
We don’t charge a daily standing charge for export tariffs. Instead, we absorb the administrative costs of managing your payments into the unit rate itself.
Finally, there is a timing factor. Single-rate export tariffs offer a flat, average price for your power. Because most solar energy is produced in the middle of the day — when the grid is flooded with solar from everyone else and not as many people are using power — the wholesale price of that electricity is lower, which brings the average price down.
If you have a battery, you can game the system. Smart tariffs like Octopus Flux and Outgoing Agile let you store that cheap solar energy and sell it during peak hours when the rates are much higher (and ease the strain on the grid at the same time).