What happened in March 2026
Octopus Energy took two decisions on 1 March 2026 that changed the export picture for every UK solar plus battery household.
First, both Octopus Flux and Intelligent Octopus Flux closed to new signups. Octopus said wholesale evening peak volatility in late 2025 and early 2026 had made the tariff economics too hard to underwrite for new sign-ons at the previous headline rates. Existing Flux customers were left in place on the tariff they had.
Second, Outgoing Octopus Fixed, the flat-rate export tariff, was cut from 15p per kWh to 12p per kWh. That is a 20% headline cut on the tariff most solar-only homes without a battery had been sitting on since 2023.
The open Octopus export menu in August 2026
Octopus still offers three fully open export tariffs to any-brand solar and battery households, plus a fourth that is bundled with the Prime import tariff.
| Tariff | Structure | Headline rate | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outgoing Octopus Fixed | Flat all-day rate | 12p per kWh | Solar without battery or set-and-forget households |
| Outgoing Octopus Lite | Flat all-day rate, any-supplier | 4.1p per kWh | Solar owners who want to keep a non-Octopus import deal |
| Agile Outgoing | Half-hourly wholesale-tracked | Variable, typically 3p to 30p | Battery owners who can automate or schedule discharge |
| Prime Outgoing | Higher fixed rate 16:00 to 19:00, lower rest of day, bundled with Prime import | Peak slot approx. mid-20s p per kWh | Battery owners who want a peak-shaped export without following half-hourly prices |
Outgoing Fixed at 12p is the tariff most new solar customers land on by default. It is the simplest and needs no scheduling. Outgoing Lite exists mainly so households who want to keep another supplier's import tariff can still register a Smart Export Guarantee tariff at all, which they need to do to receive any payment for their export.
Agile Outgoing is more interesting for battery owners. It pays a half-hourly rate that tracks the day-ahead wholesale market. On cold winter evenings that pushes above 30p per kWh in the 4pm to 7pm window and delivers real "Flux-lite" economics. On calm summer afternoons it can drop below the 12p fixed rate. Averaged across the year, a well-scheduled battery on Agile Outgoing typically earns a small premium against Outgoing Fixed. A battery with no automation is usually better off on Outgoing Fixed.
What Outgoing Fixed pays a typical 4kWp array on 12p.
- Small array, no battery: exports roughly 2,400 kWh a year, earns about £288.
- Small array with 5kWh battery: exports roughly 1,500 kWh (more self-consumed), earns about £180.
- Large 6kWp array with 11.5kWh battery: exports roughly 1,800 kWh, earns about £216.
Numbers assume MCS-certified installation and a SMETS2 smart meter recording half-hourly export. Actual export depends heavily on household load pattern and battery size.
What is worth switching supplier for
The Smart Export Guarantee, set up by Ofgem in 2020, requires larger electricity suppliers to offer at least one tariff paying solar exporters. That does not require the import supplier and the SEG supplier to be the same. So a household with a battery on Octopus Go for cheap overnight import can still register a completely separate SEG tariff with a different supplier for export payments.
Two open-market tariffs are worth checking.
- Ecotricity Smart Export at 16p per kWh. A flat all-day rate that accepts any import supplier and does not require a battery. On 2,400 kWh exported that is £384 a year, roughly £96 more than Octopus Outgoing Fixed at 12p on the same volume. There are no bundling requirements.
- Good Energy Solar Savings Exclusive at 25p per kWh. Only available to homes fitted by Good Energy Solar, JPS, Amelio or Empower. If you already bought your system from one of them, this is the highest flat rate on the UK market. If you bought elsewhere, you are not eligible.
British Gas Export & Earn Plus previously paid 15.1p to dual-fuel customers, but that rate was cut sharply in 2026 and the tariff is no longer competitive against Ecotricity for households that can move their SEG registration.
What Flux paid, and why nothing on the open market replaces it
Flux and Intelligent Octopus Flux were fundamentally different products from every tariff above. They were "two-way" tariffs where the same supplier priced import and export together across three windows: cheap overnight import, mid-day mid rate, and a peak export slot of 30p-plus in the 4pm to 7pm window when solar was long gone and wholesale evening prices were high. That structure is what let a well-run 10kWh battery earn £900 to £1,800 a year.
None of the four open Octopus tariffs, or Ecotricity, or Good Energy, prices import and export together in that way. Ecotricity at 16p is a good flat rate, but it does not reward you extra for discharging into the peak. Agile Outgoing is the closest structural match, because the wholesale market is what drove the Flux export rate high in the first place, but it lacks the guaranteed peak floor.
The practical upshot is that for solar plus battery homes signing up now, the "sell high" leg of Flux has been retired. The "buy low" leg is still there, on Octopus Go, Cosy Octopus, Intelligent Octopus Go and Agile import. The self-consumption leg (using your own solar behind the meter, not buying at retail rate) is untouched. That is where most of the value in a solar-plus-battery house lives anyway.
Where the battery still earns its keep
A home battery on a smart tariff makes money three ways: self-consumption of solar you would otherwise export cheaply, arbitrage between cheap overnight import and expensive daytime rates, and (when tariffs pay it) higher-value export to grid. Flux mattered most for the third leg. The first two are unaffected by the Flux pause.
On Octopus Go, our own 11.5kWh Habo Energy battery averages 350 to 380 full-equivalent cycles a year on tariff arbitrage alone, worth roughly £800 to £950 in the average UK region depending on postcode. On Cosy Octopus, for a heat pump household, a battery captures the 4pm to 7pm peak spread at around 37p per kWh, worth £600 to £900 a year on top of base Cosy savings.
For a household starting from scratch and choosing between solar-only, battery-only and solar-plus-battery, the numbers now look like this.
| Setup | Typical upfront (0% VAT) | Annual saving (2026 tariffs) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4kWp solar only | around £6,000 to £8,000 | around £550 to £750 | Self-consumption plus 12p Outgoing Fixed (or 16p Ecotricity) |
| 11.5kWh battery only, no solar | around £4,599 | around £800 to £950 | Octopus Go arbitrage, no export income needed |
| 4kWp solar plus 11.5kWh battery | around £10,500 to £12,000 | around £1,100 to £1,400 | Self-consumption plus arbitrage plus Outgoing Fixed export |
The battery-only line is unchanged by the Flux pause, because it never depended on Flux. The solar-plus-battery line is the one that has moved: a year ago the same setup earned closer to £1,400 to £1,700 with Flux export income. That is the concrete cost of the March 2026 pause for a new-build solar plus battery household.
What to actually do
If you are on Flux already, do nothing. You keep the tariff. Do not switch away casually, because you cannot get back onto it while it is paused. Watch Octopus's tariff page for a reopening announcement before making any change.
If you have solar without a battery and are on Outgoing Fixed at 12p, run the numbers on Ecotricity Smart Export at 16p. On 2,400 kWh a year that is roughly £96 extra with no bundling requirements. It only becomes worthwhile if the small hassle of registering with a separate SEG supplier does not outweigh the money.
If you have a battery and are choosing between Outgoing Fixed and Agile Outgoing, default to Fixed unless you already have a home automation setup that can shift discharge into the highest wholesale half-hours. The average uplift on Agile is small enough that it is not worth building automation just to chase it.
If you are still deciding whether to add solar, a battery, or both, the calculation has quietly shifted. When Flux was open the marginal return on solar was propped up by the 30p-plus peak export. On the new menu, the marginal return on solar is closer to the 12p to 16p flat range. That reduces the case for a large south-facing array financed on top of a battery, and strengthens the case for a battery alone if the roof is small, shaded, or oriented east-west. Our battery vs solar panels comparison walks through the per-pound payback of each route with current rates. The savings calculator lets you plug in your own postcode.
What could change this again
Octopus has said Flux will return when market conditions allow. Two things would make that more likely. The first is wholesale evening peaks stabilising through late 2026 and 2027 as the National Grid ESO Clean Flexibility Roadmap unlocks more grid-scale battery capacity into the balancing mechanism. The second is Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement completing rollout in October 2026, which will make it cheaper for suppliers to price export by the half-hour and pass more of the wholesale spread through to households.
If Flux does come back, we will update this page. Until then, the sensible playbook for a UK solar plus battery household is: pick the best open flat SEG for your setup, let the battery earn its full arbitrage on Octopus Go or Cosy Octopus, and treat any export income as a modest top-up rather than the main event.
Ready to start saving?
Reserve your Habo Energy battery: a simple, MCS-installed 11.5kWh home battery that earns roughly £800 to £950 a year on Octopus Go without any solar and without needing Flux to be open.
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