Feed-In Tariff Scheme

The Feed-In Tariff was a government scheme designed to encourage people to generate energy from renewable sources.

You could join the scheme if you installed solar panels to generate electricity for your home or business. Under the scheme, if your solar panels generated more energy than you needed, you’d get a payment for exporting that energy to the National Grid.

The Feed-In Tariff was a success. After its launch in 2010, over 800,000 homes in the UK installed solar panels. Then, in 2018, the government decided the scheme should close and be replaced by a different scheme.

The end date for the Feed-In Tariff scheme was 31st March 2019.

People who joined the scheme before it ended will continue to get FITs payments.

The government is replacing the FIT scheme with the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG). Under SEG, energy suppliers will pay small scale generators (e.g. homeowners with solar panels) a per kWh price for their surplus energy.

The government is still deciding the details of the SEG scheme.

For the time being, if you install solar panels after 1st April 2019, you won’t receive money for exporting your surplus energy to the National Grid. But you can store the extra energy you generate for use when you need it using a solar storage battery.