The solar buyback rate is what Guernsey Electricity (GE) pays you when your solar system exports your unused solar electricity back to the grid.
What is the current buyback rate?
👉 0.099 pence per kWh (just under 10 pence)
Any energy you don’t use at home is exported automatically and credited at this rate.
What’s the additional value of export?
Every exported unit strengthens Guernsey’s energy independence and energy system
It’s clean, local power shared with the community. It means more of our power is generated here, not elsewhere. Exported solar reduces the island’s dependence on imported electricity, lowers peak stress on the grid, and increases local resilience.
Export injects money directly into the local economy
Instead of Guernsey spending money buying electricity from a large overseas conglomerate, the island pays its own residents for locally produced energy.
That keeps money circulating on-island, strengthening local households and businesses. It’s an economic multiplier: solar generation retains wealth instead of exporting it.
Export is an added financial benefit
Homeowners are paid for surplus energy. Is it the highest rate in the world? No. But it’s pretty good compared to many other places in the world. Does it add value over the lifespan of a system? Yes, it contributes.
Export protects the island from future volatility
Local generation means less exposure to global energy markets, geopolitics, and fossil fuel swings. Your export contributes to this stability.
Export is essential for the long-term transition
If Guernsey scales solar the way many islands have, exported solar becomes a backbone of a clean energy grid.
So export is absolutely important — just not always the main source of a homeowner’s financial savings.
Export supports a decentralised, future-ready grid
A grid fed by many micro-generators is more resilient than one dependent on a single cable or external supplier.
Where do homeowners see the biggest personal financial benefit?
From avoiding high-rate imports.
Self-consumption to offset the high rate tariff delivers the largest direct savings, but export still adds value.
