The Complete Guide to Solar Buy-Back Rates in New Zealand

A solar buy-back rate is the price your power company pays you for the electricity your panels send back to the grid. In New Zealand right now, flat buy-back rates sit somewhere between 7 and 17 cents per kWh depending on your retailer, while the power you buy off them costs roughly 28 to 38 cents per kWh (per published retailer pricing and the Electricity Authority's market data). That gap is the single most important number in solar economics, and it tells you the honest truth straight up: every unit you use yourself is worth two to four times more than every unit you export. Get your head around that one fact and you already understand more than most people who've just signed a solar contract.

What a buy-back rate actually is

When the sun is shining and your panels are producing more than your house is using, that surplus power has to go somewhere. It flows back out through your meter and into the grid for your neighbours to use. Your retailer credits you for it. That credit is the buy-back rate, sometimes called an export rate.

Here's the thing nobody selling you panels wants to dwell on: you do not get paid the same rate you pay. New Zealand never had a generous national export scheme, and there's no government mandate forcing retailers to pay a set price. Each retailer sets its own rate, and they compete on it (loosely).

So the economics of solar in Aotearoa are built around self-consumption: using your own generation in your own home, in real time, rather than selling it at a low rate and buying it back dear. Understanding buy-back rates is really about understanding how little you want to rely on them.

Why this matters more in NZ than almost anywhere

Our situation is genuinely different from the overseas examples you'll see quoted online. Three things make it so:

• No subsidy. There's no national export subsidy or rebate scheme here. EECA supports energy efficiency, but there's no cheque for exporting solar. Your buy-back rate is purely what a retailer chooses to offer.
• A big buy-sell gap. Because retailers buy your export at wholesale-ish prices but sell you power at full retail (including network charges, levies and GST), the gap is wide. That gap is where your real savings live, and it's all on the self-consumption side.
• Our climate and roofs. A lot of Kiwi homes are under-insulated and lean hard on heating in winter, exactly when solar produces least. Northland gets serious sun hours; the West Coast genuinely struggles with cloud; Central Otago has crisp, clear, cold winters that panels actually like. Where you live changes the whole picture.

Put simply: in New Zealand, the buy-back rate is the consolation prize, not the main event. The main event is shifting your power use into daylight hours so you buy less from the grid in the first place.

Flat rates vs dynamic rates: the big divide

Buy-back plans in NZ split into two broad camps, and the difference matters enormously for how much you'll earn.

Flat buy-back rates

A flat rate pays you the same cents-per-kWh for every unit you export, no matter what time of day or season it is. It's simple, predictable, and easy to model. Most of the big retailers offer something in this shape.

Typical flat rates from major retailers currently land in the 7 to 12 cents per kWh range, with a few sitting higher. Genesis, Mercury and Contact have all run flat export rates in this territory (check each retailer's current published rate, because they move). The appeal is certainty: you know exactly what every exported unit is worth.

The downside is that a flat rate is, almost by definition, a mediocre rate. The retailer averages out the value of your power across the whole day and pays you the average. You never get rewarded for exporting at the moment power is genuinely valuable.

Dynamic (time-of-use) buy-back rates

A dynamic rate changes depending on when you export. The retailer pays more when wholesale electricity is expensive (usually the morning and evening peaks) and less, sometimes much less, in the middle of the sunny day when everyone's solar is flooding the grid.

This is where it gets interesting, and where some households can do genuinely well. Plans like Octopus Energy's and Ecotricity's peak-export offerings can pay standout rates for power exported during the evening peak window, sometimes several times the flat rate. We've broken down exactly how those work, because the detail decides whether they pay off: there's a full walk-through of Octopus Energy's OctopusPeaker and OctopusFlexi plans here, and a separate look at how Ecotricity's Resi-Flex peak export plan actually works.

The catch with dynamic rates is obvious once you say it out loud: your solar panels produce most at midday, exactly when the dynamic rate is lowest. A peak-export rate of 40-something cents at 6pm is lovely, but your panels are barely producing then. So the high headline rate only pays off if you can store power and release it at the right time, which means a battery.

The insight most people miss: a high buy-back rate can be worth less than a battery

Here's something you won't hear from a salesperson chasing a signature. Two identical houses, side by side, same panels, same roof. One chases the highest possible buy-back rate. The other ignores buy-back almost entirely and focuses on using its own power. The second house usually wins.

Why? Run the numbers. Say you export a unit and get paid 12c for it. Later that evening you buy a unit back at 32c. You're down 20c on that round trip. Now imagine instead you'd shifted that usage into the daytime, ran your hot water cylinder, your dishwasher, your washing machine while the sun was up. You'd have used your own 12c-value export as a 32c-value saving. You captured the full 32c, not the 12c.

That is the whole game. A dynamic peak-export plan tries to close that gap by paying you closer to retail for evening export, but it can only do that if you've got a battery holding charge to release at 6pm. Without storage, the highest buy-back rate in the country still only applies to power you're dumping at midday for cents.

So the order of priority for nearly every NZ household is:

1. Use your own power in real time (worth full retail, ~28-38c saved).
2. Store it in a battery for evening use (worth retail minus battery wear).
3. Export it for the buy-back rate (worth 7-17c, the lowest-value option).

The battery decision is involved enough that it deserves its own proper look, and the maths genuinely differs household to household. If you want to pressure-test whether storage pencils out for you, our cost and ROI calculator lets you model it with your own numbers rather than a brochure's optimistic ones.

How timing your energy use changes everything

If you take one practical thing away, make it this: shift your big power-hungry tasks into the middle of the day. This is called load shifting, and it's free money.

The appliances worth moving into daylight hours, roughly in order of impact:

• Hot water cylinder. Often the single biggest electricity user in a home. A simple timer or a smart controller that heats the cylinder at midday turns your solar surplus into stored hot water instead of low-value export.
• EV charging. If you've got an electric car and can charge it during the day, you're converting export-value power into transport. Huge.
• Heat pump. Pre-heating (or pre-cooling) the house while the sun's up means the place coasts into the evening warm, using less grid power at peak.
• Dishwasher, washing machine, dryer. Set them to run at lunchtime, not after dinner.

Do this and your self-consumption rate climbs from a typical 30-ish percent up towards 50-60 percent or higher, which is exactly where the savings compound. The retailer's buy-back rate becomes almost an afterthought, which is precisely where you want it.

This is also why the "best" plan depends on your daily rhythm. A retired couple home all day, running appliances in the sun, barely needs to care about buy-back at all. A household out at work and school until 6pm exports most of its midday generation and genuinely benefits from a better export rate (or a battery to soak it up). Same panels, completely different best-fit plan.

Reading a buy-back offer properly: the fine print that bites

Retailer plans are not as simple as the headline cents-per-kWh. A few things to check before you sign anything:

• Is the buy-back rate tied to a specific usage plan? Often the good export rate only comes bundled with a particular (sometimes pricier) buy-side tariff. The export rate might look great while the daily fixed charge or usage rate quietly claws it back.
• Is there an export cap? Some plans pay the headline rate only up to a daily or monthly limit, then drop to a lower rate. If you've got a big system, this matters.
• Low-user vs standard-user fixed charges. The Government's phase-out of the regulated low-user fixed charge is changing daily charges across the board. Make sure you're comparing total cost, not just the export number.
• Peak windows for dynamic plans. Exactly which hours count as peak, and on which days, decides whether a peak-export plan is worth anything to you. Read them carefully.
• Notice and rate-change terms. Buy-back rates aren't locked forever. Check how much notice the retailer gives before changing your rate.

We keep a fuller breakdown of how the different retailers stack up in our main rundown of NZ solar tariffs and retailers, including the quirks of specific plans. Meridian's solar buy-back plans are worth a closer read too if they service your area, since their structure differs from the peak-export crowd.

Your network matters too (and most people forget it)

Your retailer sets the buy-back rate, but the lines company that owns the poles and wires in your region sets the network charges baked into what you pay. These vary a lot across the country, and they quietly shift your payback maths.

• Vector covers most of Auckland. Two-storey homes and the city's shading make panel placement and self-consumption planning especially important here.
• Orion covers Christchurch and much of Canterbury, where big, simple roofs on the plains are a solar installer's dream.
• Aurora Energy covers Dunedin and Central Otago, where those clear, cold winters actually help panel efficiency even as sun hours drop.
• Powerco, Unison, WEL Networks, Wellington Electricity, Top Energy and others each have their own charging structures.

Some networks are also trialling their own rewards for exporting at the right time, separate from your retailer's buy-back. It's an evolving space. If you want to see how a dynamic export setup might play out on your usage pattern, our dynamic tariff and buy-back engine lets you experiment with the scenarios rather than guessing.

A worked example: the same system, two different households

Let's make this concrete. Take a 6.6kW system producing roughly 9,000 kWh a year (a fair estimate for a sunny-ish NZ region, per typical NIWA solar irradiance figures, though your exact yield depends on location and roof angle).

Household A is home during the day, runs the hot water and appliances in the sun, and self-consumes 55% of generation. They buy back from the grid at 33c. By using ~4,950 kWh themselves, they avoid roughly $1,633 of grid purchases. The remaining 4,050 kWh exported at a 12c flat rate earns about $486. Total annual benefit: around $2,119.

Household B is out all day and self-consumes just 25%. They use ~2,250 kWh themselves (avoiding ~$743 of purchases) and export 6,750 kWh at 12c for about $810. Total annual benefit: around $1,553.

Same panels, same sun, same retailer. Household A is roughly $566 a year better off purely because of when they use power. That gap is exactly what a battery or a smarter dynamic plan is trying to recover for Household B. (These figures are illustrative; plug your own numbers into the calculator for a real answer.)

Where buy-back rates genuinely don't help

Honesty time. Buy-back rates, and solar in general, don't suit everyone:

• Renters. If you don't own the roof, you usually can't install panels, and buy-back is moot.
• Heavily shaded roofs. Trees, neighbouring buildings, a north-blocking hill. If your panels can't produce, there's nothing to export.
• Homes about to be sold. If you're moving in a year or two, you may not be there long enough to recoup the install, and solar's value at resale is real but not always full-price.
• Low daytime occupancy with no battery. As Household B shows, if nobody's home and you won't store power, you're stuck exporting most of it at the low rate. The numbers still work, just more slowly.

None of this means don't get solar. It means go in with clear eyes about what the buy-back rate will and won't do. It will never zero your winter bill, because winter is when you generate least and heat most. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling, not advising.

Your practical action plan

Here's the order I'd work through it if it were my own roof:

1. Pull 12 months of your power usage. Most retailers show your half-hourly data online. Look at when you actually use power. That pattern decides everything.
2. Estimate your realistic self-consumption. Be honest about how much you can shift into daylight. This number drives your savings far more than the buy-back rate does.
3. Decide if a battery earns its place. If you're out all day, model the difference storage makes before you rule it in or out.
4. Compare total plan cost, not just the export rate. Line up the buy-back rate, the usage rate, and the daily charge together. A flashy export number can hide an expensive plan.
5. Match the plan to your rhythm. Home all day? A simple flat plan and good load-shifting may beat everything. Out all day with a battery? A dynamic peak-export plan could shine.
6. Get real quotes before committing. Pricing and system sizing change the whole equation. A fully installed 5kW system runs roughly $9,000-$12,000 in 2025 (around $1.70-$2.00 per watt, per current installer pricing and MBIE data).

If you're weighing up finance rather than paying cash, it's worth checking whether you qualify for a low-rate green loan before you borrow on a standard rate. Our green finance qualifier runs you through it in a couple of minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good solar buy-back rate in NZ right now?

Flat buy-back rates currently range from about 7c to 17c per kWh depending on the retailer. Anything around 12c or above is competitive for a flat rate. Dynamic peak-export plans can pay considerably more for evening export, but only really pay off if you have a battery to release power at peak times.

Why is the buy-back rate so much lower than what I pay for power?

The price you pay includes network charges, market levies, retailer margin and GST on top of the wholesale energy cost. Your export is bought closer to wholesale value. That's why using your own power is worth two to four times more than exporting it, and why self-consumption matters far more than the export rate.

Do I need a battery to benefit from a high buy-back rate?

For dynamic peak-export plans, effectively yes. Your panels produce most at midday when those rates are lowest, so you need storage to hold that power and export (or use) it during the high-value evening peak. For a flat-rate plan, no battery is needed, but a battery still boosts your savings by letting you use your own power after dark.

What's the difference between a flat rate and a dynamic rate?

A flat rate pays the same cents-per-kWh for every unit exported, regardless of time. A dynamic (time-of-use) rate changes through the day, paying more during peak demand periods and less when solar is flooding the grid at midday. Flat rates are simpler and more predictable; dynamic rates can pay more if you can time your export.

Can solar and a good buy-back rate eliminate my power bill?

No, and be wary of anyone who says so. A grid-connected home still pays a daily fixed charge and still buys power in winter and at night when generation is low. Solar can dramatically cut your bill, especially over summer, but it won't zero it.

Does my lines company affect my buy-back rate?

Not directly; your retailer sets the buy-back rate. But your network (Vector, Orion, Aurora, Powerco and so on) sets the charges baked into what you pay for power, which affects your overall payback. Some networks are also trialling their own export incentives separate from retailers.

Will my buy-back rate stay the same forever?

No. Retailers can and do change their buy-back rates, usually with notice. Check the rate-change terms before signing, and don't build your whole investment case on one retailer's current rate staying put.

How do I increase what I earn from solar?

Lift your self-consumption. Shift your hot water heating, EV charging, dishwasher and laundry into daylight hours. Pre-heat or pre-cool with your heat pump while the sun's up. Every unit you use yourself is worth far more than every unit you export.

Is a dynamic plan worth it if I'm out at work all day?

Only if you pair it with a battery. Without storage, you'll export most of your generation at the low midday rate and have nothing to sell at the lucrative peak. With a battery, a dynamic peak-export plan can genuinely close the gap caused by being away during daylight.

How much does my region change the maths?

Quite a bit. Sun hours, cloud cover and temperature all matter. Northland has high sun hours; Central Otago's clear, cold winters actually help panel efficiency; the West Coast genuinely struggles with cloud. Your generation estimate should reflect your local conditions, not a national average.

The Bottom Line

Buy-back rates matter, but not in the way the headline numbers suggest. The honest truth is that in New Zealand the real money is in using your own power, not selling it. A flat rate gives you certainty; a dynamic peak-export plan can reward you handsomely, but usually only with a battery doing the heavy lifting. The lever almost everyone can pull, for free, is timing: run your big loads while the sun's up and watch the savings build.

Work out your own usage pattern first, then choose the plan that fits it rather than chasing the biggest number on a brochure. When you're ready to compare offers properly, the full rundown of NZ solar tariffs and retailers is the natural next read, and the buy-back engine will let you test the scenarios against your own numbers.