The New South Wales pricing regulator has achieved a rare feat in the modern solar age, setting a benchmark rooftop PV feed-in tariff that is higher, and not lower, than the year before.
The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal last week published its solar feed-in tariff benchmark ranges – a recommendation, only, for the state’s retailers – for 2025-26 at between 4.8 and 7.3 c/kWh, up from 4.9 to 6.3 c/kWh in 2024-25.
“We have just published our solar feed-in tariff benchmark ranges for 2025-26, and the flat-rate tariff is slightly higher than last year because we’re forecasting wholesale electricity prices to increase,” IPART member Jonathan Coppel said.
“We also benchmark the value of solar exports at different times of the day. The amount of solar exported to the grid drops off in the late afternoon and early evening and the benchmarks have much higher values at these times, often more than 20c/kWh, as the supply from solar falls and electricity demand increases.”
The NSW decision bucks a strong downwards trend in the value placed on solar sent to the grid, as household-generated electrons continue to drive down wholesale electricity prices, often sending them to zero and below during the day.
In Victoria, for example, the Essential Services Commission set the flat rate minimum feed-in tariff for 2025-26 at a sniff over zero – 0.04 cents per kilowatt hour.
Victoria’s ESC has also advised that from, July 01, it will no longer set minimum feed-in tariffs (FiT), following an amendment to the Electricity Industry Act 2000. This means retailers in the state can set their own FiTs, but they cannot be below zero ($0.00) cents per kWh – that is, they cannot implement a solar export tariff, or sun tax.
The “time-varying” minimum feed-in tariffs set by the ESC for 2025-26 range from 6.57 cents per kilowatt hour in the evening peak to 0.00 during daytime hours.
“From 1 July, electricity retailers may set their own feed-in tariffs,” the ESC says in a update. “However, these cannot be below zero ($0.00) cents per kWh. More information is available from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Change.”
NSW, meanwhile, is going down the “sun tax” path in earnest come July, with almost all of the 300,000-plus solar households on the Ausgrid network set to pay an average of $2.50 a year in rooftop PV export tariffs from the start of the new financial year.
But Coppel says that, on balance with the ever so slightly higher recommended solar FiT range, the net impact of the state’s export tariffs should be “very small, reducing IPART’s benchmark range by less than 0.1 c/kWh.”
Further, Ausgrid notes that not all of its solar household customers will be affected by the export tariff when it’s introduced, because not all retailers will pass it through.
All told, the increasingly clear message from regulators and the industry is that solar self-consumption is now out and away the best way for consumers to get the most value from their rooftop solar – not least because it reduces the amount of electricity bought from the grid.
“Retailers’ electricity prices are higher than the solar feed-in tariff rates because retail prices also include network costs, environmental obligations, and the cost of their operations,” Coppel says.
“That means you get more value from using your solar electricity and reducing the amount of electricity you buy from your retailer, rather than from maximising the amount you export.”
For most households, using batteries to store the solar power that can’t be used as it is generated will be key to minimising exports and maximising self-consumption. And this year, with the federal rebate due to launch in July and the NSW state scheme already in place, could be the best time to invest.
It’s unclear yet whether NSW solar households will be able to combine the rebates from the federal and state governments. The word from the federal government side of the equation is that it is possible, but requires action from the state side.
*This article has been corrected to change the average annual amount solar households on the Ausgrid network are expected to pay in export tariffs from $3.50 to $2.50.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
