Households across the UK were paid out a record for energy generated from rooftop solar panels last year, figures from regulator Ofgem show.
Almost £31 million was distributed in the year to March 2024 under schemes offering households revenue to sell energy from their rooftop panels back to the grid.
This compared to £7.2 million in the previous year. In total in 2023, 283.1 gigawatt hours (GWh) worth of electricity was exported against 77.3 GWh beforehand.
Energy exported back to the grid from households equated to enough to power just over 88,000 typical homes for a year, Ofgem reported.
Ofgem added the increase had come as the number of tariffs offered under the government-backed Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) rose from 39 to 42 in its fourth year.
“The SEG is designed to build a competitive market where suppliers must offer innovative tariff designs and fair prices in order to remain attractive to customers,” Ofgem said.
Some 283,666 household installations were registered for such tariffs as of March - marking a threefold increase year-on-year.
“It is exciting to see the development of this new market for export from small-scale generators,” Ofgem delivery and schemes director Neil Lawrence commented.