Feed-in tariffs are hitting zero in 2026. Solar's usually still worth it — a battery isn't required.
Several retailers have cut export feed-in tariffs to near-zero, and at least one major retailer to zero, in 2026. The industry line is "the FiT is dead, so you must buy a battery." That's back to front. A dying export rate actually strengthens the case for correctly-sized solar used well — and it does not mean you have to buy storage now. Here's the honest maths.
Reviewed by the Mission Green Energy Team · Updated July 2026
Is solar still worth it
with a near-zero feed-in tariff?
For most households — yes, correctly-sized solar still stacks up. And no, you don't have to buy a battery to make it work. The export rate was never where most of the money lived.
Here's the frame the sales pitch skips: the value of solar has always been mostly in self-consumption — the power you make and use yourself, so you don't buy it from the grid — not in the feed-in tariff you earn for exporting the surplus. Government consumer guidance is blunt about this: in almost all cases, solar customers should use their own power before exporting it, because a feed-in tariff is typically a fraction of the retail rate you pay to buy electricity (energy.gov.au).
So when a retailer cuts your export rate toward zero, it chips away at the smaller of the two levers. Every kilowatt-hour your panels make and you use at home still avoids buying grid power at your import rate — which for most Australian households sits in the order of 30 to 45 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on state, retailer and tariff. That saving doesn't change when the FiT falls. What does change is how you should size and use the system — and whether that "you must buy a battery now" line holds up. (Short answer: it doesn't, on its own.) If you're weighing solar from scratch, start with our honest guide to whether solar is worth it in 2026.
Feed-in tariffs really are
heading to zero — here's the proof.
This isn't hype. Across 2025 and 2026, regulators and retailers have pushed export rates to near-zero — and in one major case, to exactly zero for default customers.
The direction is unmistakable, and it's documented at the source:
- A major retailer went to zero. AGL confirmed that customers on its Standard Retail Contract (the default standing offer) receive a 0 c/kWh feed-in tariff from 1 July 2026 (AGL). Market-offer plans may still pay a little, but the default is now nothing.
- NSW's benchmark keeps falling. IPART's voluntary all-day feed-in benchmark for 2026-27 dropped to 3.4–6.5 c/kWh, down from 4.8–7.3 c/kWh the year before — and these are non-mandatory guidance, so retailers can offer less (IPART).
- Victoria removed its minimum entirely. From 1 July 2025, following an amendment to the Electricity Industry Act 2000, the Essential Services Commission no longer sets a minimum feed-in tariff; retailers set their own, provided the rate stays above zero. The regulator's final minimum had already fallen close to zero, which is why the mandated floor was scrapped (Essential Services Commission).
Whatever your retailer and state, the safe assumption for 2026 is that your export is worth little and may be worth nothing. Confirm your own rate on your bill or via the government's Energy Made Easy comparison site — figures change constantly.
Why are feed-in tariffs
collapsing to zero?
It's the maths of abundance, not a stitch-up. So much rooftop solar now exports at the same time that midday power is often worth almost nothing.
A feed-in tariff is meant to reflect what your exported energy is worth to the retailer at the moment you export it. The trouble is that millions of rooftops all export together during the solar glut — roughly 10am to 3pm — when the sun is high and demand is low. When everyone is selling and nobody is buying, the wholesale value of that midday energy collapses, sometimes to zero or below. The falling feed-in tariff is simply that reality flowing through to your bill.
Two things follow from this, and they shape the rest of this guide. First, the value of your solar shifts decisively toward using your own generation rather than exporting it. Second, some networks are going further and introducing two-way pricing — sometimes called a "sun tax" — that can charge you for exporting during peak solar hours while paying (or rewarding) exports in the evening. That doesn't kill solar either, but it's another reason to size for self-use rather than for spilling to the grid. We unpack it separately in the sun tax and two-way export tariff, explained.
A zero feed-in tariff
makes the right-sized system look better.
Counter-intuitive but true: when export is worthless, the entire return comes from self-consumption — and self-consumption is worth many times more than export ever was.
Avoids ~30–45c a unit
Power you make and use yourself replaces grid electricity you'd otherwise buy at roughly 30 to 45 c/kWh. That saving is unaffected by the feed-in tariff — it was always the bigger lever.
Was only ever a few cents
Even at its best, export earned a fraction of the import rate. Losing a 5–10c export rate stings far less than most sales pitches imply — because self-consumption is worth several times more per unit.
Use more, export less
The winning move is no longer "generate and sell as much as possible." It's "generate and use as much as possible" — matching your solar to your daytime load.
Think of it as two taps. The export tap has been slowly turned off over the last few years. The self-consumption tap — worth many times more per unit — is wide open and unaffected. A near-zero feed-in tariff simply removes the small, distracting return and puts the focus where the real money always was. The households that keep doing well out of solar in 2026 aren't the ones with the biggest export cheques; they're the ones using the most of their own generation. That's a sizing-and-habits question, not a battery question.
We won't put a dollar figure on your outcome — it depends entirely on your usage, roof, tariff and shading, and any promise of a specific saving would be dishonest. But the direction is clear and it's in the official guidance: self-consuming your solar saves more than exporting it (energy.gov.au).
Size the system
to your daytime load.
With export near zero, the goal changes from "export as much as possible" to "use as much as possible." That's about sizing and habits — not about buying a battery.
When export was worth 10–15c, a big array that spilled a lot of surplus to the grid still earned its keep. With export near zero, the value is concentrated in the power you use yourself, so the design question becomes: how much of your generation can you actually consume during daylight? Two levers do most of the work:
- Right-size the array to your usage pattern. Oversizing panels is relatively cheap and still worth doing — it covers cloudy days, winter and morning/evening shoulders — but the emphasis moves from raw system size to how well generation matches your daytime consumption. A good installer looks at your actual load, not just the biggest system that fits the roof.
- Shift flexible loads into the sun. Run the hot water (especially a heat-pump hot water system), pool pump, dishwasher and washing machine in the middle of the day; pre-cool or pre-heat the house with the aircon while the sun's up; charge the EV on a daytime window if you can. Every unit you move into daylight is a unit you self-consume instead of buying back at night.
Do those two things and a near-zero feed-in tariff barely touches you — because you're keeping the valuable power, not selling it cheap. If you want a structured way to work out the right size for your household, our companion guide walks through it: what size solar system do I need?
"The FiT is dead, so you must
buy a battery." Not so fast.
A near-zero feed-in tariff is being used as a reason to sell storage. It isn't one, on its own. A battery has to pay on its own numbers — not on the death of the export rate.
The pitch goes: "Your export is worthless now, so you may as well store that surplus in a battery and use it at night." There's a grain of truth — storing surplus you'd otherwise give away for free does add value. But it's not the slam-dunk it's sold as, and here's the honest test a battery has to pass regardless of what the feed-in tariff does:
- Does the battery's cost, after any rebate, beat the value of the evening grid power it lets you avoid — over its warranted life? That's the whole question. A dying feed-in tariff nudges the answer, but it doesn't decide it.
- Would that surplus have been better used, not stored? If you can shift more daytime load (see above), you self-consume that energy directly — no battery, no round-trip losses, no capital outlay.
- Is the payback inside the warranty? If a battery pays for itself only after its warranty runs out, a zero feed-in tariff doesn't rescue it.
The honest sequence is: size the solar to your daytime load first, live with it for a while, then add a battery later only if its own maths justify it for your household. There's a real federal rebate that changes battery economics — the Cheaper Home Batteries Program — and for some homes storage genuinely stacks up. But "the FiT hit zero" is not, by itself, the reason. Start with our honest guide to whether a home battery is worth it and cost it properly before anyone links it to your feed-in tariff.
When a zero feed-in tariff
does hurt the case.
We're not going to pretend the export rate never mattered. If your situation was built around exporting a lot, a zero FiT genuinely changes your maths — and sometimes the honest answer is "get an assessment first."
Solar gets genuinely marginal — and worth a careful look before committing — when several of these are true at once:
- You're rarely home during the day and can't shift meaningful load into daylight hours, so most of your generation would have to be exported for near-zero return.
- You have little flexible load to move — no pool, gas hot water you can't easily change, no EV, minimal daytime appliance use.
- Your roof or shading is poor, cutting generation when it matters.
- Your system was quoted deliberately oversized to export, on the assumption of a healthy feed-in tariff that no longer exists.
If that's you, solar can still work — but the design has to be honest about it, and the answer might be a smaller system, a focus on load-shifting, or "not yet." This is exactly the sort of case where we'd rather tell you to wait or rethink than sell you a system built for an export rate that's gone. That's the whole point of getting a real assessment rather than a maximised quote.
So — get solar, wait,
or add a battery?
Here's the call we'd give a friend: yes to correctly-sized solar, no rush on a battery, and don't let a zero feed-in tariff be used as the reason for either decision.
For most households, correctly-sized solar is still worth it in 2026, even with the feed-in tariff at or near zero — because the return comes from self-consumption avoiding grid power at roughly 30 to 45 c/kWh, not from the export rate. Size the array to your daytime load, shift flexible loads into the sun, and a dying feed-in tariff barely dents you. Don't rush into a battery. A near-zero FiT does not, by itself, justify storage; add a battery later only when its own cost (after any rebate) beats the evening grid power it saves over its warranted life. And be open to "wait" or "not yet" if you're rarely home during the day, have little load to shift, or your roof is poor — in those cases, get a proper assessment before committing rather than a quote built to export. The order matters: sort the solar first, decide on the battery second — and never let the death of the export rate stand in for the actual numbers.
Feed-in tariffs at zero?
Your questions, answered.
Usually yes — because the money in solar was never mainly in the export. The bigger saving is self-consumption: every kilowatt-hour your panels make and you use in the home is a kilowatt-hour you don't buy from the grid at the retail import rate, which for most Australian households sits in the order of 30 to 45 cents per kilowatt-hour depending on state, retailer and tariff. A feed-in tariff, even at its best, has been a fraction of that — and it's now heading to near-zero or zero for many customers. So a falling FiT changes how you should size and use a system, not whether solar pays. The honest catch: if your system was sized to export a lot and you're barely home during the day, a zero FiT does hurt the case — which is exactly why sizing to your daytime load matters more than ever. Always confirm your own import and export rates on your bill, because figures change.
The direction is down across the board, and at least one major retailer has gone to zero for some customers. AGL confirmed that customers on its Standard Retail Contract (the default standing offer) will receive a 0 cents per kilowatt-hour feed-in tariff from 1 July 2026. Market-offer plans from AGL and other retailers may still pay something, but the whole market is trending toward low single-digit or near-zero export rates. In New South Wales, IPART's voluntary benchmark for 2026-27 dropped to 3.4 to 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, and in Victoria the government removed the regulated minimum feed-in tariff from 1 July 2025 (retailers now set their own, provided it stays above zero). Because plans change constantly, check your retailer's current rate and compare offers on the government's Energy Made Easy site before assuming yours.
No — a near-zero feed-in tariff does not mean you must buy a battery. It's a common sales line, but the logic doesn't hold on its own. A battery only makes sense if its own numbers stack up: the cost of the battery, after any rebate, against the value of the evening grid power it lets you avoid buying, over its warranted life. A dying feed-in tariff makes correctly-sized solar more attractive (self-consumption is now worth far more than export), but it does not automatically make a battery pay. The right order is: size the solar to your daytime load first, live with it, then add a battery later only if its own maths justify it for your household. Don't let a zero FiT be used as the reason to sign up for storage you haven't costed.
Size it around what you actually use during daylight hours, not around how much you can export. When export was worth 10 to 15 cents, a big system that spilled a lot to the grid still earned its keep. With export near zero, the value is concentrated in the power you use yourself, so the goal shifts to matching generation to daytime consumption and shifting flexible loads — pool pump, hot water, dishwasher, EV charging, running the aircon to pre-cool — into the sunny middle of the day. That usually still points to a decent-sized array (oversizing panels is cheap and covers cloudy days and winter), but it changes the emphasis from "export as much as possible" to "use as much as possible". A good installer will look at your actual usage pattern rather than just maximising system size.
Because so much rooftop solar now floods the grid in the middle of the day that daytime electricity is often worth very little — sometimes nothing — at the wholesale level. Feed-in tariffs are meant to reflect the value of that exported energy to the retailer, and when everyone's panels are exporting at once during the 10am-to-3pm solar glut, that value collapses. Regulators have followed the wholesale reality: IPART's NSW benchmark keeps dropping, and Victoria's regulator set its final minimum so close to zero that the state removed the mandated minimum altogether from 1 July 2025. Some networks are also introducing two-way pricing (a so-called "sun tax") that can charge for exporting at peak solar times. It's the maths of abundance, not a conspiracy — and it's why self-consumption, not export, is where the value now sits.
For most households the honest verdict is: yes to correctly-sized solar, no rush on a battery. A near-zero feed-in tariff strengthens the case for a well-sized array used well, because self-consumption avoids buying grid power at roughly 30 to 45 cents per kilowatt-hour — many multiples of any export rate. It does not, by itself, justify a battery; add storage only when its own costs and rebate stack up against the evening grid power it saves. Where solar genuinely gets marginal is if you're rarely home during the day, can't shift any load into daylight, and your roof or shading is poor — in that case, get a proper assessment before committing, and be open to the answer being "not yet". Run your own numbers on your own bill; we'll say "wait" when waiting is the honest call.
Where these figures come from.
Feed-in tariff and price figures on this page are drawn from official primary sources and named retailers, and were current as at 2026. Rates change constantly — confirm at the source, and on your own bill, before relying on a figure.
- energy.gov.au — Solar feed-in tariff: self-consumption saves more than exporting; FiTs are a fraction of the retail rate
- AGL — Solar feed-in tariffs: Standard Retail Contract feed-in tariff moves to 0 c/kWh from 1 July 2026
- IPART (NSW) — Solar feed-in tariff benchmarks 2024-25 to 2026-27: voluntary 3.4–6.5 c/kWh for 2026-27
- Essential Services Commission (VIC) — Minimum feed-in tariff: regulator no longer sets a minimum from 1 July 2025
- Australian Energy Regulator — Final Default Market Offer 2026-27 (retail price context)
- Energy Made Easy — Australian Government plan comparison (check current FiT and import rates)