Counterparty Risk on the Roof: Keeping Export Income Alive When a Supplier Exits

Most solar owners treat the electricity supplier as a billing convenience rather than a piece of the installation. The panels, the inverter, the mounting system and the DNO notification all receive careful attention; the counterparty that actually pays for exported kilowatt-hours is often taken on trust. That trust has been tested repeatedly. The wave of supplier failures in 2021 and 2022 moved hundreds of thousands of accounts, and smaller licensed suppliers continue to enter and leave the market. For anyone receiving Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) payments, the financial exposure is modest month to month but can accumulate quietly into a four-figure sum if payments stall for half a year.

The supplier is a component, not a footnote

A domestic solar array is a generation asset with three commercial relationships attached: the distribution network operator that consents to the connection, the installer who certifies the work, and the supplier who buys the export. Only the third is genuinely replaceable at short notice — but only if the owner holds the right information. Framing the supplier as part of the system, rather than an administrative afterthought, is the starting point for resilience planning.

It helps to separate two things that are often conflated. Your import supplier and your SEG licensee need not be the same company. The SEG obliges licensed suppliers above a size threshold to offer export tariffs, and nothing prevents a homeowner from buying electricity from one supplier and selling generation to another. Many owners default to a single supplier for convenience, which is precisely what turns a supplier failure into a full interruption of export income.

What happens in the days after a failure

When a supplier ceases trading, Ofgem runs a Supplier of Last Resort (SOLR) process. A receiving supplier is appointed, usually within days, and customer accounts transfer automatically. Domestic credit balances are protected under the process and are generally honoured by the new supplier. Export arrangements are messier. The SOLR appointment transfers the supply relationship; it does not automatically preserve the commercial terms of a SEG tariff. The receiving supplier may apply its own export rate, which could be lower, or may require the customer to re-apply before payments resume.

For business premises the position can be harder still. Larger export arrangements are frequently governed by a power purchase agreement with a fixed term and a price linked to wholesale markets. If the offtaker fails, the agreement typically terminates rather than transferring, and the site may export without payment until a replacement contract is signed. Registration of Renewables Guarantees of Origin also sits with the offtaker, so evidence of supply may need to be reconstructed.

Deemed versus negotiated terms

The distinction between deemed and negotiated export determines how much of your revenue is at risk during a transition. Deemed export applies to small installations without half-hourly metering, with payment based on an assumed proportion of generation rather than measured export. It is administratively simple and less dependent on metering data, which makes it comparatively resilient: a new supplier can usually restart deemed payments from a documented installation date and an MCS certificate.

Negotiated or metered export depends on half-hourly data flowing from a smart meter through the Data Communications Company. If the supplier's systems go offline before the data is reconciled, the records sit with a company in administration. Owners who have downloaded their own consumption and export history in advance can substantiate a claim; those who have not may find months of generation difficult to evidence. Where a site has an export MPAN and a half-hourly settlement arrangement, the loss of a few months of data can be genuinely costly.

Records that keep a claim alive

A modest document set makes the difference between a short interruption and a long dispute. Keep it somewhere independent of any supplier portal.

• The MCS certificate and installation date, which establish SEG eligibility.
• The DNO notification or connection agreement, including the export MPAN and any agreed export limitation.
• Meter serial numbers, MPANs and the date of any smart meter commissioning.
• Monthly photographs of the meter register, taken on a consistent date.
• Quarterly downloads of half-hourly data, where available, stored offline.
• The final statement or tariff confirmation from the outgoing supplier showing the rate and the period covered.

None of this is onerous. A folder reviewed once a quarter, with a calendar reminder set, is sufficient for most homes.

Re-establishing the payment relationship

The practical recovery sequence is straightforward once the records exist. Confirm who has been appointed as SOLR and whether export payments have transferred. Check the first statement carefully: a resumed payment at a different rate is easy to miss. If the inherited terms are poor, shop the export tariff separately from the import contract, since switching SEG licensee does not disturb the electricity supply. Where payments have lapsed, submit the MCS certificate and metering evidence directly and ask for the gap to be reconciled, quoting installation date and meter readings rather than relying on the supplier to reconstruct them.

For businesses, begin the replacement PPA conversation early. Export without a contract is rarely remunerated retrospectively, and a gap of two quarters at high summer generation is a material loss.

A five-point resilience routine

Review the export tariff annually against the market rather than leaving it on a default. Keep the document set current and off-platform. Download data quarterly. Know, in advance, which suppliers offer SEG terms suited to your generation profile. And treat the supplier relationship as an asset with a lifespan of its own — one that deserves the same attention as the inverter warranty, because when it fails, the sun keeps shining and the meter keeps turning, but the payments stop.