If you own solar in Queensland, there's a number on your bill that's been quietly shrinking for years.
It's your feed-in tariff.
A decade ago, Queenslanders on the old Solar Bonus Scheme were paid 44 cents for every kilowatt hour they sent to the grid. Solar was a money printer. You put panels on the roof, exported everything you didn't use, and watched the credits pile up.
Those days are gone.
In 2026, the median feed-in tariff across South East Queensland retailers is 3 cents per kWh. Some plans pay less than half a cent.
Meanwhile, the electricity you buy back from the same grid at night costs around 30 cents per kWh.
That's a 10 to 1 gap. And it's the single most important number most solar owners have never calculated.
What Just Happened in Regional Queensland
If you're on the Ergon network, you don't get to choose a retailer feed-in tariff. The Queensland Competition Authority sets one rate for everyone.
Here's the trend:
- 2024-25: 12.38 c/kWh
- 2025-26: 8.66 c/kWh
- 2026-27: 6.006 c/kWh (from 1 July 2026)
That's a 31% cut in a single year, and more than a 50% cut in two.
The QCA's own fact sheet is blunt about why. Wholesale energy costs during the middle of the day have fallen, because so many Queensland roofs are now pumping solar into the grid at the same time. They also stated plainly that "customers should not expect the solar FiT to remain the same when deciding whether to install or upgrade PV systems."
Translation: don't build your energy strategy around being paid for exports.
The Mistake Most Solar Owners Are Still Making
Here's a conversation we have constantly.
A homeowner installed a 6.6 kW system five or six years ago. Their bills dropped. Life was good.
Then, gradually, the bills crept back up.
They assume their panels are failing. Or the retailer is ripping them off. Or the system was undersized.
Usually, none of that is true.
What actually happened is that the value of their exports collapsed, while the price of the power they import in the evening kept rising. The panels are producing just as much as they always did. The problem is what happens to that energy after it's produced.
Most households self-consume roughly half of what their panels generate. The rest goes to the grid in the middle of the day, when nobody is home, for whatever the retailer feels like paying.
Then the sun goes down, the air conditioner comes on, dinner gets cooked, and the household buys that same energy back at full retail price.
You're selling low and buying high, every single day.
A Simple Example
Let's use round numbers.
An unshaded, north-facing 5 kW system in Queensland can generate somewhere in the region of 7,000 to 7,600 kWh a year.
Say half of that, around 3,800 kWh, gets exported.
At 3 cents per kWh, that export is worth about $114 a year.
Now imagine that same 3,800 kWh was stored and used at night instead of being bought from the grid at 30 cents.
That's roughly $1,140 a year of avoided purchases.
Same panels. Same sunshine. Same energy. Ten times the value, purely based on whether it's exported or stored.
These are illustrative figures. Your tariff, your usage pattern and your system size will change the exact result. But the direction never changes: a kilowatt hour used at home is worth many times more than a kilowatt hour given to the grid.
Why This Is a Queensland Problem Specifically
Queensland has one of the highest rooftop solar penetration rates on the planet.
That sounds like a good thing, and in many ways it is. But it creates a very specific market dynamic.
Between roughly 10am and 3pm, the grid is flooded with solar. Wholesale prices at that time often drop to near zero, and sometimes below. Retailers have no commercial reason to pay much for something they're drowning in.
Then, at 6pm, everyone gets home at once. Solar production drops off a cliff. Demand spikes. Wholesale prices spike with it.
The grid doesn't have a solar problem. It has a timing problem.
And whoever can shift energy from the middle of the day to the evening holds the valuable position.
That's exactly what a home battery does.
The Quiet Flip: When Batteries Start Getting Paid
Here's the part most homeowners haven't noticed yet.
While standard solar feed-in tariffs are heading toward zero, a small but growing number of plans now offer a separate battery feed-in tariff for energy exported in the late afternoon and evening, when the grid actually needs it.
Virtual Power Plant programs work on the same principle. Your battery discharges during grid events, and you're paid for evening exports at rates well above the daytime solar rate.
Think about what that means.
The market is telling you, in dollars, that daytime solar exports are nearly worthless and evening stored energy is valuable.
Homeowners who export raw solar are on the losing side of that trade. Homeowners with properly sized storage are on the winning side.
"So I Should Just Buy Any Battery, Right?"
No. And this is where a lot of people get burned.
A battery is not a magic box. It's an engineering decision.
The wrong battery size, paired with the wrong inverter, on the wrong tariff, can leave you with a system that fills up by 11am and then dumps the rest of the day's solar to the grid at 3 cents anyway.
Or a battery that's too small to get you through the evening peak, so you're still buying from the grid at 30 cents from 8pm onwards.
Or an installer who slaps a battery onto an existing system without checking whether the inverter, the switchboard or the export limits are compatible.
The households getting real results are the ones where someone actually sat down with their usage data, their roof, their tariff and their evening load, and designed a system around how their home actually runs.
That's the difference between a "sticker-slapper" install and an engineered one.
What This Means for You
If you already have solar in Queensland, the honest question isn't "is my system working?"
It's "how much of my solar am I giving away for almost nothing?"
If you don't have solar yet, the honest question isn't "what's the best feed-in tariff?"
It's "how do I design a system where the feed-in tariff barely matters?"
Because that's where the market is heading. The retailers know it. The regulators have said it in writing. And the trend line for feed-in tariffs only points one direction.
The Real Question
The feed-in tariff was never the point of solar. It was a subsidy to get panels on roofs, and it did its job.
The point of solar was always to stop renting your power from someone else.
For years, exporting to the grid felt like a fair trade. At 3 cents, it isn't.
So here's the question worth sitting down with this week:
How many kilowatt hours did you export last quarter, and what would that energy have been worth if you'd kept it?
For most Queensland solar owners, the answer is the difference between a system that pays for itself and a system that's quietly paying the retailer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the solar feed-in tariff in Queensland in 2026?
In South East Queensland the median retailer feed-in tariff is around 3 cents per kWh, and some plans pay less than half a cent. On the Ergon network in regional Queensland the rate is set by the Queensland Competition Authority: 12.38 c/kWh in 2024-25, 8.66 c/kWh in 2025-26, and 6.006 c/kWh from 1 July 2026.
Is it still worth exporting solar to the grid in Queensland?
Exporting still earns something, but far less than using the power yourself. Exported solar is worth roughly 3 cents per kWh while electricity bought back in the evening costs around 30 cents, a gap of about ten to one. A kilowatt hour used at home is worth many times more than the same kilowatt hour sent to the grid.
Why has my power bill gone up when my solar panels still work?
Usually the panels are fine. What changed is the value of your exports. Most households self-consume only about half of what they generate, and the rest goes to the grid in the middle of the day for a few cents, while the price of the power they import in the evening keeps rising.
How much more is stored solar worth than exported solar?
As an illustration, an unshaded north-facing 5 kW Queensland system might generate 7,000 to 7,600 kWh a year. If around 3,800 kWh of that is exported at 3 cents, it is worth about $114 a year. Storing the same 3,800 kWh and using it at night instead of buying at 30 cents avoids roughly $1,140 of purchases. These are illustrative figures and your tariff, usage pattern and system size will change the exact result.
Will Queensland feed-in tariffs go back up?
The Queensland Competition Authority has stated plainly that customers should not expect the solar feed-in tariff to remain the same when deciding whether to install or upgrade a PV system. The decline is driven by very high rooftop solar penetration pushing midday wholesale prices toward zero.
Does that mean any battery will fix the problem?
No. Battery size, inverter compatibility, switchboard capacity, export limits and your tariff all change the result. A battery on the wrong setup can fill by mid-morning and export the rest of the day at 3 cents anyway, while one that is too small leaves you buying grid power again from 8pm.
Find Out How Much You Are Losing to Low Feed-in Rates
The gap between what you earn exporting and what you pay importing grows every quarter. The real question is what storing that power would save your specific household.
We calculate this in a free energy assessment — based on your actual bills, not averages.
