Switching energy retailers when you have solar or battery on-site

Brisbane runs on commercial solar. North-facing roofs, year-round sun, government rebates that landed five-to-ten years ago — half the cafes, warehouses, gyms and medical clinics we audit have panels.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you when the installer wraps up: your solar system and your energy contract are two completely separate things. The installer doesn’t negotiate your contract. The retailer doesn’t review your solar. Most owners end up with great panels and a mediocre contract that under-pays them for exports.

This guide is what changes when you switch retailers with solar (or a battery) on-site.

What you’ll get out of reading this:

• How feed-in tariffs (FiTs) actually work for commercial sites
• Why your current retailer probably isn’t paying you fairly for exports
• How batteries change the math (a lot)
• What “REC sourcing” means and when you actually need it
• The 5 things to check before signing a new contract if you have solar

If you’d rather skip the reading: send us your last bill and a copy of your solar export reading. We’ll quote the panel knowing you’ve got solar — most retailers don’t auto-account for it. We’re paid by the energy retailer when you switch, never by you.

The 30-second version

If your site has solar or a battery, three numbers matter on your bill that don’t matter for a non-solar site:

1. kWh exported back to the grid — the energy you produced but didn’t use, sold to your retailer
2. Feed-in tariff (FiT) rate — what your retailer pays you per kWh exported (in cents)
3. Net usage — what you actually drew from the grid after solar self-consumption

Most retailers quote new customers with a default FiT — typically 5-9 c/kWh in Brisbane today. Sharp retailers will offer 10-14 c/kWh if pushed. On a 30 kW commercial system exporting 10,000 kWh/year, the difference between default and sharp is $400-$500 a year — just on FiT alone.

Add that to the regular contract savings and a solar-equipped site usually saves more by switching than a non-solar site does.

Three things you’ve got that change the math

1. A bi-directional meter

If you’ve got solar exporting to the grid, your meter measures two flows: imports (from the grid to you) and exports (from you to the grid). Your contract needs to price both. Some retailers quote import only, then auto-default the export rate. Always confirm.

2. A self-consumption profile that isn’t 24/7

Solar produces during daylight. Your business runs at certain hours. The overlap (when you’re using power AND the sun is shining) is self-consumption — you save the full retail rate per kWh. Outside that overlap, you either import (pay) or export (get paid).

A cafe that opens 7am-3pm self-consumes most of its solar. A gym that runs 5am-10pm imports a lot at the early/late ends and exports at midday. Different profiles → different best-fit retailers.

3. A demand profile that’s probably unchanged

This catches a lot of owners out. Solar doesn’t usually reduce your demand charge. Demand is measured on the worst 30-minute spike from the grid — usually pre-open or post-close, when the sun isn’t doing much. Even with solar, your demand line on the bill barely moves.

(See our Demand charges explained guide for the full version.)

Feed-in tariffs explained

A feed-in tariff (FiT) is the rate your retailer pays you for each kWh you export to the grid. In Queensland, it’s:

• Voluntary — retailers set their own commercial FiT rates (residential is government-mandated; commercial isn’t)
• Always lower than your import rate — because retailers profit on the margin between what they pay you and what they on-sell it for
• Negotiable — especially on larger commercial systems above 30 kW

Typical Brisbane commercial FiT rates in 2026

Numbers move with wholesale market conditions — but the gap between default and negotiated stays roughly the same.

How to spot a bad solar contract

If your bill shows any of these, your contract isn’t pricing solar properly:

• “FiT: not applicable” even though you’ve got panels — you’re not being paid for exports at all
• A FiT below 5 c/kWh — that’s below market floor in Brisbane right now
• A “buyback rate” that only applies up to 5 kWh/day — basically nothing for commercial scale
• Export capped at a fixed dollar amount per month — common in older contracts, costs you money on sunny months

If your contract has any of these, you’ve been overpaying for at least a year.

Battery storage — different rules

Batteries change every part of the math.

Why batteries beat solar alone for demand reduction

Solar can’t shave demand (we covered that). Batteries can. A 10 kWh battery discharging during your peak 30 minutes can drop your kVA reading meaningfully — saving on the demand line that solar couldn’t touch.

For a small business paying $400/year on demand, a battery might shave $100-150/year. For a C&I site paying $50,000+/year on demand, a battery sized to peak-shave can save $5,000-12,000/year. The math depends on:

• Your kVA reading and your demand rate
• Battery capacity vs your peak window length
• Whether your contract allows battery-discharge optimization

How retailers price batteries

Most retailers don’t price batteries explicitly — they price the net load profile that includes battery behavior. Practical implications:

• You need 3-6 months of usage data after the battery is installed for a retailer to quote accurately
• Quoting from pre-battery data will undersell what the battery saves you
• The C&I tender retailers (SmartestEnergy, Shell C&I) are usually sharper at modelling battery behavior than the SME panel

If you’ve just installed a battery and want to re-quote, wait the 3-6 months for clean data. Don’t rush to switch before the retailer can see the new profile.

Time-of-use shifting

If you’ve got a battery, you can also charge it overnight (cheap off-peak rates) and discharge during peak hours (expensive peak rates). Arbitrage. Some retailers price this in; some don’t. The ones who do are usually the better fit for a battery site.

Specific retailers in 2026 known to price battery-friendly contracts well:

• Powershop — good time-of-use rates, decent FiT, transparent on battery discharge
• Energy Locals — battery-aware contracts, generally transparent
• SmartestEnergy Australia — for C&I battery sites, very sharp

REC sourcing — when you actually need it

“REC sourcing” (Renewable Energy Certificate sourcing) is one of CNI Energy’s three listed services. Worth explaining what it actually is.

The short version

A Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) — known formally as a Large-scale Generation Certificate (LGC) for big systems and Small-scale Technology Certificate (STC) for smaller ones — is a tradeable certificate that represents 1 MWh of renewable electricity generated.

When you install commercial solar, the system generates STCs (or LGCs above ~100 kW). You can:

1. Sell them to your installer at install time (typical — installer discounts your upfront cost in exchange for the certificates)
2. Hold them and sell them later when the price moves
3. Source them externally — if you want to claim “100% renewable” branding but don’t have enough on-site generation

Option 3 is what “REC sourcing” services like CNI’s offer. A broker (us or them) buys certificates on the open market on your behalf — effectively offsetting your grid imports with renewable claims.

When does this make sense?

• You’re marketing as 100% renewable but your on-site solar only covers part of your usage
• You’re chasing a certification (Climate Active, GreenPower for businesses, B Corp, etc.) that requires verified renewable claim
• You have ESG reporting obligations to investors or clients who require renewable-sourced energy

For most Brisbane SMEs, REC sourcing is overkill — your solar generates STCs at install and that’s usually enough. For mid-sized C&I sites with sustainability commitments to clients, REC sourcing is worth quoting.

Pricing in 2026: LGCs are roughly $30-50 per MWh on the wholesale market. On a 100 MWh/year site claiming 100% renewable, that’s $3,000-5,000/year extra on top of your energy contract.

If you want REC sourcing quoted, we can include it in the tender. Honest answer: most Smarta clients don’t need it. If you do, ask.

The 5 things to check before signing a new contract if you have solar

In order of how much money each one moves:

1. Confirm the FiT rate in writing. Quoted, locked in, in the contract — not “to be confirmed.” Default rates can change. Locked rates can’t.
2. Confirm there’s no export cap. Some older contracts cap exports at a fixed dollar amount per month. Sunny months you lose money. New contracts should be uncapped.
3. Confirm the import rate accounts for self-consumption hours. If your business is mostly daytime, you want sharper import rates during business hours. If you’re 24/7, you want flat rates that don’t penalize you off-peak.
4. Confirm the demand rate is competitive. Solar doesn’t lower demand. The demand line is your second-biggest negotiation, after the energy rate itself.
5. Confirm meter type compatibility. Most newer meters (smart meters / Type 4) handle bi-directional reading. Older meters (Type 5 or Type 6) may need an upgrade — usually free, but check before signing.

If your broker can’t confirm all 5 in writing before you sign, don’t sign.

Multi-site and C&I — solar across the portfolio

If you’ve got solar on multiple sites:

• The aggregate FiT matters more than per-site. A C&I tender quoting on portfolio average can be sharper than quoting per-site.
• Mismatched system sizes complicate things. A portfolio with 30 kW on some sites and 200 kW on others tenders differently than uniform installs.
• Battery + solar combos at scale are where the real C&I savings are. We’ve helped a multi-site hospitality group save $32,000/year by re-quoting a portfolio with mixed solar + battery configurations across 14 sites.
• REC sourcing might make sense at portfolio scale if you have public sustainability commitments.

If you’re a procurement manager with solar across 5+ sites: the standard SME quote won’t capture what your portfolio’s worth. The C&I tender process is the move.

Common questions

Does adding solar help me get a better contract?
Sometimes yes, but not as much as people hope. The contract savings come from rebidding the panel, not from having solar. Solar gives you a FiT line to negotiate; the bigger negotiation is still the import rate and demand.

Can I keep my installer’s recommended retailer?
You can, but you don’t have to. Installers often partner with one retailer (sometimes for referral fees). That retailer might not be the sharpest. Always rebid the full panel — your installer’s recommendation is one data point, not the answer.

What’s a “solar feed-in offset”?
Some retailers describe FiT credits as “offsets” against your import bill rather than direct payments. Functionally the same thing on a net bill. Just check the line item is there.

Does solar change my tariff classification?
Usually no. Your tariff (8500, 7100, etc.) is set by your network connection and total usage — not by whether you have solar. But check, because some networks moved solar-equipped sites onto specific tariffs.

My contract is mid-term and I just installed solar. Should I switch now or wait?
Depends on early-termination fees. If your existing contract has a steep exit fee, wait until expiry. If it’s term-flexible (some contracts are), we can quote a new deal that nets out the exit fee against the saving. We’ve done this in roughly 1-in-5 cases — it works when the saving is big enough.

Can a battery pay for itself just on demand savings?
On a high-demand C&I site, yes — payback in 4-6 years is realistic. On a small site (cafe, salon), demand savings alone won’t pay back the battery. You’d need to combine demand + time-of-use arbitrage + backup-power value.

One last thing

Most Brisbane businesses with solar installed it 3-7 years ago. The energy contracts on those sites usually haven’t been touched since. The market has moved, the FiT rates have moved, the retailer panel pricing has moved — and the contract sits unchanged, quietly costing more than it should.

If that’s you: send us your last bill plus your solar export data. We’ll show you what the contract should look like in 2026. No commitment. Free. Same wires, same panels, new name on the invoice.

Joe Lawrence — Co-founder, Smarta Switch Australia
0435 642 592 · joseff@smartaswitch.com.au