Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the price that households with solar panels receive for selling energy onto the grid is linked to market cost.

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a market-led mechanism, to help level the playing field for small-scale low-carbon generators such as householders with solar panels. It provides a route to market for any excess energy exported to the grid following closure of the Feed-in Tariffs scheme.

To enable the SEG to be market based and encourage innovation, one of the key features is to allow suppliers to set both the tariff levels and structure. The contracts that suppliers have with householders are at a set price which is not directly linked to the wholesale market cost.