Feed-in charges are the costs an energy supplier charges customers who feed electricity from their solar panels back into the grid. They are separate from the feed-in tariff and from the net metering scheme.
Legal basis
The Energy Act, in force since 1 January 2026, requires tariffs for small consumers to be reasonable and transparently presented. The Authority for Consumers and Markets supervises this and held on 17 December 2025 that feed-in charges are not prohibited: suppliers may levy them provided they demonstrably relate to costs actually incurred, such as purchasing and imbalance costs arising because feed-in occurs at unpredictable moments. The method of calculation must be capable of being explained to the customer. The regulator noted that suppliers present these costs in different ways, which makes comparison difficult, and argued for greater uniformity. The net metering scheme ends on 1 January 2027 under the Net Metering (Termination) Act, after which a statutory floor applies to the feed-in tariff.
How it works in practice
The charges are calculated in various ways: a fixed monthly amount, a scale based on volume fed in, or an amount per kilowatt hour over the full annual injection. For the customer the arithmetic is what matters: raising self-consumption, a dynamic contract or a home battery can limit the disadvantage. Anyone on a fixed contract should check whether it allows these charges to be introduced mid-term; where that is a unilateral change to the customer’s detriment, there is usually a right to terminate free of charge.
Where it goes wrong
Suppliers introduce the charges during a running fixed contract without a proper basis for variation. A second problem is substantiation that cannot be followed, so the customer cannot check what they are paying for. Third, consumers compare only the supply tariff rather than the total picture including standing charges and feed-in costs.
Related terms
The charges connect to the net metering scheme, the consumer energy contract and supervision by the Authority for Consumers and Markets.
Unsure whether the charges are justified? Our energy lawyers review the contract and the substantiation.
