Smart Export Guarantee Eligibility: MCS, G98/G99 and Export Metering

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) enables small-scale generators to receive payments from electricity suppliers for electricity which they export back to the National Grid, provided certain criteria are met¹. It came into force on 1 January 2020 under the Smart Export Guarantee Order 2019², replacing the export side of the closed Feed-in Tariffs scheme. Under the SEG you are paid for every unit of electricity you feed back into the grid³, and SEG generators are paid by their chosen SEG licensee, an electricity supplier that offers a SEG tariff⁴.

The scheme is not automatic. Three things must be in place before a supplier will pay you: your installation and installer must be certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) or an equivalent scheme, your installation must be notified to your network operator under the G98 or G99 connection standards, and you must have a meter capable of recording exports at half-hourly intervals. This page explains each requirement, what documents a supplier will ask for, and how homes with older Feed-in Tariff installations fit in.

What the SEG is and who pays you for exports

The SEG is a supplier-led obligation rather than a government-funded scheme. SEG licensees, which are electricity suppliers that have opted into the scheme, must offer a SEG tariff to all eligible generators¹, and the licence conditions require them to offer an above-zero export tariff for an eligible installation when the stated conditions are satisfied⁷. The supplier, not the state, pays you for the electricity your installation sends back to the grid.

Two features of the scheme shape how a household uses it. First, the supplier is required to offer you a tariff but is free to determine its terms, for example whether it is fixed or variable³. Second, your SEG licensee does not need to be the same company as your current energy supplier: you can apply for a SEG tariff with any SEG licensee, and you can choose to use separate companies for your SEG payments, your electricity supply and your gas supply if you wish¹. That separation matters, because it means the export tariff can be chosen on its own merits rather than bundled to your import deal, although some suppliers do attach conditions to their export tariffs, for example the purchase of import electricity⁸.

The SEG sits alongside the wider picture of export rates and the Smart Export Guarantee scheme itself, which this page's eligibility rules serve.

MCS certification of both the technology and the installer

The core eligibility rule is that the technology and the installer must be certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) or an equivalent scheme, and suppliers may ask for an MCS certificate as part of your application⁵. The certification covers two separate things: the product itself and the person who fitted it. Both must hold current certification at the time of the installation.

The consequences of missing this step are firm. Access to many incentives depends on using an MCS-certified installer⁹, and without MCS certification homeowners may be unable to access SEG payments, qualify for certain grants, or demonstrate compliance properly⁹. A local authority puts the same point plainly: having your solar system installed by a non-accredited installer could mean that you are not eligible to apply for the SEG¹⁰.

For a household thinking about energy independence, this is the first gate. The certification requirement exists to give suppliers confidence that an installation is safe and correctly commissioned, but it also means the choice of installer is made before any export income is possible, not after.

Qualifying kit: solar panels, wind, micro-CHP, hydro and anaerobic digestion

The SEG Order lists the eligible low-carbon energy sources: anaerobic digestion; hydro generation stations; combined heat and power systems with an electricity capacity of 50 kilowatts or less; solar photovoltaic; and wind up to the maximum capacity specified in the SEG Order⁷. Ofgem's scheme rules list the same five: solar photovoltaic (solar PV), wind, micro combined heat and power (micro-CHP), hydro and anaerobic digestion (AD)⁴.

These are the same technology types that were eligible under the Feed-in Tariffs scheme¹¹, and the continuity is deliberate: all installations which were eligible for the FIT scheme are also eligible for the SEG, provided they are fitted with an export or smart meter capable of taking measurements at half-hourly intervals⁶.

In practice the scheme is overwhelmingly a solar scheme. Ofgem's annual report for 2022 to 2023 recorded 30 installations for other technology types alongside the solar majority, with 23 micro-CHP and seven wind installations⁸. Anaerobic digestion carries an extra administrative step: to be eligible, SEG AD installations are required to submit a SEG AD Compliance Declaration to Ofgem¹².

Smart meters: the export recording device you must have

Payments under the SEG are calculated using export meter readings⁴, so the meter is not a formality: it is the instrument that determines what you are paid. The requirement is that the installation is fitted with an export or smart meter capable of taking measurements at half-hourly intervals⁶. Ofgem's guidance for SEG licensees states the same in operational terms: the meter must be capable of measuring export at half-hourly intervals¹³.

The half-hourly rule has a specific shape. Exports under the SEG must be metered on a half-hourly basis and registered for settlement, but they will not be required to be settled on a half-hourly basis². In other words, the metering must exist and be registered, even though the settlement process behind it does not have to run half-hourly. The government's position is that SMETS-compliant smart meters are compatible with microgeneration and enable measurement of export on a half-hourly basis⁷.

Energy Saving Trust adds a practical point: you need a registered smart meter that records your exported electricity, even if you are not signing up to a smart tariff⁵. The meter, not a manual reading, is what stands behind the payment.

For households, the smart meter itself is free: you contact your supplier to get one at no cost¹⁴. A smart meter automatically sends your electricity and gas meter readings to your supplier, which means bills based on accurate readings rather than estimates and no need to submit readings yourself¹⁵. The same meter that enables export payments also underpins access to more flexible tariffs, including dual-rate tariffs¹⁵, which is relevant to homes that both export and shift their import usage.

G98 and G99: the standards behind grid connection requests

Before any export tariff, there is a network connection to sort out. G98 and G99 are the engineering standards that govern how a generation installation connects to the local distribution network, and your network operator, the DNO, is the body that applies them. The DNO's response is an email confirmation indicating that it has logged your commissioning documents in its system and verified that your system complies with G98/G99 standards¹⁶.

The distinction between the two standards matters for larger installations. Electricity North West, one DNO, describes a G99 Fast Track process: for applications that meet its stated criteria, it undertakes a review of the network and, if certain conditions are met, issues a Fast Track notification¹⁶. The practical sequence for a household is that the installer notifies the DNO of the installation, the DNO confirms compliance, and that confirmation becomes part of the paperwork trail a SEG licensee may ask to see.

This is a dependence worth naming. The connection is granted by the network operator, not chosen by the household, and the DNO's confirmation is what establishes that the installation is allowed to export onto the network in the first place. Without it, the MCS certificate and the meter are not enough on their own.

Batteries and storage: how they affect your export payments

Storage does not disqualify you. If you have an energy storage system, you can still apply for the SEG; Energy Saving Trust gives the example of a battery that stores electricity from the grid before exporting it later⁵. The government's position, set out when the SEG was designed, was not to prevent SEG payments being made on so-called brown electricity exported from a storage device or from non-renewable equipment co-located with a SEG technology, but suppliers are not obligated to pay on brown electricity².

That leaves the tariff terms doing the work. A storage device with the ability to import and export electricity, such as a household battery or an electric vehicle, could be used to benefit from the SEG³, but whether a particular supplier pays for electricity that came from the grid rather than your panels depends on that supplier's tariff. Ofgem maintains guidance on the co-location of electricity storage with installations receiving a SEG tariff, updated with an appendix covering exactly this situation¹⁷, aimed at scheme participants considering co-locating storage with their SEG installation.

For a household with a battery, the eligibility position is straightforward: the SEG application covers the generating installation, and the battery changes what is exported and when rather than whether you qualify. The detail of how storage interacts with export payments is covered in exporting from a home battery and in the question of SEG payments for battery storage.

Choosing a supplier: comparing SEG payment rates

The application route is direct. All generators who wish to receive payment for the electricity they export back to the National Grid need to apply to a SEG licensee, and for further information about the SEG and to apply for a SEG tariff, generators should contact SEG licensees directly¹⁸. Ofgem publishes a list of SEG licensees every year⁵, and its list of SEG electricity suppliers is the reference point for who is currently offering tariffs¹⁹.

What to compare follows from what suppliers control. SEG licensees can choose the tariff rate, contract length and some other relevant terms which they offer generators as part of their SEG contract¹⁹. The supplier must offer a tariff, and must offer an above-zero export tariff for an eligible installation when the stated conditions are satisfied⁷, but beyond that floor the terms are the supplier's to set, including whether the tariff is fixed or variable³ and whether conditions attach, for example the purchase of import electricity⁸.

A numbered application looks like this:

1. Confirm your installation and installer hold MCS certification, and gather the certificate⁵.
2. Confirm your DNO has accepted the connection under G98 or G99 and keep the confirmation¹⁶.
3. Confirm you have a registered meter capable of half-hourly export measurement⁶.
4. Choose a SEG licensee from Ofgem's published list⁵.
5. Contact the licensee directly and apply, supplying the documents it asks for¹⁸.

Because your SEG licensee does not need to be your energy supplier, the export tariff can be compared separately from your import deal¹. If you pay a supplier directly for the electricity or gas you use at home, you can choose to switch to a different supplier or tariff at any time²⁰, and the two decisions are independent. One caution applies if a supplier fails: your meter may not work in smart mode when you move to the new supplier, and you may need to take meter readings manually and submit them to your new supplier instead, although the meter may work in smart mode again if you change tariffs or suppliers²¹.

Older FIT homes: routes into the SEG scheme

Homes with older Feed-in Tariff installations face one central rule: you cannot be paid twice for the same exports. A prospective SEG generator must not also receive or benefit from the FIT export tariff, or receive SEG payments from another SEG licensee, for the installation⁷. Ofgem's guidance for FIT generators states the practical step: in order to register for the SEG, you must first opt out of FIT export payments for the installation by contacting your FIT licensee²². The same rule appears in the FIT supplier guidance: generators intending to claim SEG payments must not be in receipt of an FIT export tariff for the same generation capacity²³.

Crucially, only the export side is affected. Your generation payments will not be affected²². A FIT generator who opts out of export payments keeps the generation tariff and gains the ability to claim SEG payments on exports instead.

There is also a route for two installations side by side. You can receive SEG payments for an installation when you already receive FIT export payments for a different installation, as long as the installations are completely separate, with distinct import and export meters and different import and export MPANs²⁴. The MPAN, the meter point administration number, is the identifier that makes the separation real: two installations with different export MPANs are two installations for payment purposes.

The comparison between the two schemes, and the question of FIT versus SEG, is covered elsewhere on the site, as is the history of the Feed-in Tariff and its export payments.

How eligibility affects a home's energy self sufficiency

The SEG turns surplus generation into income, and that is a genuine gain for independence: a household that exports is not simply giving electricity away. But the eligibility rules also map the dependencies that remain. The payments come from a supplier, on the supplier's terms, within a floor set by the licence conditions⁷. The installation must satisfy a certification body, the MCS⁵. The connection sits with the network operator under G98 or G99¹⁶. The meter, and the readings it sends, determine what is paid⁴.

None of that removes the value of generating your own electricity. A home with solar panels uses less from the grid whatever the export tariff pays, and the SEG adds a return on what it does not use. What the eligibility rules make clear is that export income is a relationship with three institutions, a certifier, a network operator and a supplier, and each of them holds a piece of the arrangement. A household that keeps its MCS certificate, its DNO confirmation and its meter registration in order holds its side of that relationship, and can move between SEG licensees without losing the underlying ability to export¹.