How to Read the Solar Export Section of Your Electricity Bill

A solar household's electricity bill is more complex than a standard bill. There's the import side, meaning electricity you draw from the grid, and the export side, meaning electricity your panels generate beyond what your household uses, which goes to the grid and (usually) earns you a credit.

Most guides to reading electricity bills cover the import side. This guide covers the solar export section: what the figures mean, how to use them, and what they tell you about whether your solar setup is financially optimised.

The Two Meters on a Solar Bill

When solar panels are connected to the grid, your home has a bi-directional meter, one that can measure both electricity flowing into your home from the grid and electricity flowing out of your home to the grid. Some older installations have two separate meters: an import meter and an export meter. Newer smart meters handle both on a single device.

Your bill reflects both measurements.

Import meter (or import register): Records kilowatt-hours drawn from the grid. This is what you're charged for.

Export meter (or export register): Records kilowatt-hours sent to the grid from your solar system. This is what you're credited for.

Understanding which figures refer to which side of the meter is the foundation of reading a solar bill correctly.

The Key Solar Sections on Your Bill

Section 1: Electricity Usage Charges

This section looks the same as a non-solar bill. It shows your import consumption in kWh and the charge rate (c/kWh). Even with solar, you draw from the grid when your panels aren't generating enough, whether at night, on cloudy days, or during morning peaks before the sun is up.

Read this section for:

• Total import kWh: How much grid electricity you consumed in the billing period
• Your usage rate: The cents per kWh you're charged for grid electricity
• Peak/off-peak breakdown (if time-of-use tariff applies)

Section 2: Solar Feed-In Credit

This section is where the solar export figures appear. It typically has a heading like "Solar Feed-In Credit," "Solar Export Credit," or "Feed-In Tariff Credit."

Key figures in this section:

Export volume (kWh): How much electricity your solar system exported to the grid during the billing period. This is the total kilowatt-hours that were generated by your panels beyond what your household consumed in real time.

Feed-in tariff rate (c/kWh): The rate your retailer pays you per kilowatt-hour of export. This is the figure to evaluate for competitiveness. It's typically expressed as a simple credit rate (e.g., "6.0 c/kWh") or may be broken into time-varying rates if you're on a time-varying FiT product.

Total feed-in credit ($): The dollar value of your export credit for the billing period. This is export volume × feed-in tariff rate.

Section 3: Net Bill Calculation

Most solar bills show the arithmetic clearly: import charges + supply charge - feed-in credit = net amount payable (or net credit if your export exceeds your import costs).

Understanding this net calculation is the key to evaluating whether your plan is right for your solar household.

What Self-Consumption Means (And Why It's Not on Your Bill)

Here's the figure that's missing from most bills: self-consumption, the electricity your panels generate that your household uses directly, without it ever appearing on the grid meter.

Self-consumption is invisible in billing. It shows up neither as an import (because you didn't draw from the grid) nor as an export (because you used it before it left your home). It's free electricity, but it doesn't appear on your bill.

Why this matters: your solar system's total output is significantly higher than the export figure on your bill. The generation total is split between self-consumption and export. A solar system generating 6,000 kWh per year might export 3,500 kWh and self-consume 2,500 kWh. Your bill only shows the 3,500 kWh export.

Some retailers and many inverter monitoring apps do show total generation separately. If you have access to your inverter monitoring data, it shows total generation, self-consumption, and export, which is the complete picture.

For comparison purposes, the critical figures are your actual import and export volumes from your bill. We work with what's on the bill.

What Good Solar Billing Looks Like

A well-optimised solar billing arrangement has:

A competitive feed-in tariff rate. The market for voluntary FiTs varies significantly by state and retailer. If your current FiT is at or below the minimum rate for your state, you're likely leaving money on the table. Check: what is the highest FiT currently available in your postcode from any retailer?

A usage rate appropriate for your import pattern. Solar households that self-consume heavily and export less benefit most from reducing their import rate. Solar households with large systems that export substantially benefit most from maximising their feed-in rate. The balance between optimising import rate versus export rate depends on your actual ratio.

A supply charge that doesn't eat your export credit. If your solar export credit is, say, $120 per quarter, and your supply charge is $90 per quarter, the supply charge is consuming most of your solar financial benefit. Plans with lower supply charges matter more for smaller solar systems with modest export volumes.

No time-of-use penalty on heavy evening usage. Some solar households move to time-of-use plans expecting to benefit from the time-varying FiT, then find that their evening import charges at peak rates outweigh the gain. Check your import and export timing before assuming TOU is better.

Using Your Solar Bill for Comparison

When you upload your bill to Fix Your Bill, we extract all the relevant solar and import figures automatically. You don't need to identify which section contains which figure. The OCR reads the document and extracts:

• Import kWh (split by peak/shoulder/off-peak if TOU)
• Export kWh
• Current feed-in tariff rate
• Current usage rate(s)
• Current supply charge

We then run the net cost calculation against every available plan in your area that supports solar, comparing your net annual cost (import costs minus export credits plus supply charge) on your current plan against the net cost on every available alternative.

The result shows you whether your current solar plan is competitive in terms of your total net energy cost, not just whether your FiT rate is attractive in isolation.

The One Question Your Bill Answers Right Now

Take your feed-in tariff rate from your bill. Now ask: is this the highest rate available from any retailer in my postcode?

If the answer is no, and you're exporting a meaningful volume of electricity, you're leaving money on the table every billing period. The fix is a plan comparison that accounts for your actual solar import and export volumes.

Upload your bill and we'll run it.

Fix Your Bill's solar comparison accounts for both import and export sides of your electricity equation. Feed-in tariff availability varies by state and distributor network. Export limit conditions may apply in some areas.