Would you sell your home-grown vegetables to Coles for $1, then go back that evening and buy them back for $28?

One of the most common questions people ask about solar is:

“What feed-in tariff will I get?”

I think that can be the wrong number to focus on.

Imagine growing vegetables at home. You have more than you need in the morning, so you sell the surplus to Coles for $1.

Then that evening, you need those same vegetables again, so you go back and buy them for $28.

You probably wouldn’t spend much time trying to negotiate whether Coles pays you $1 or $1.20.

You’d be more interested in keeping more of what you grew.

Solar can work in much the same way.

Some Victorian businesses may export excess solar for around 1¢/kWh, then later buy electricity from the grid at around 28¢/kWh.

That doesn’t mean every business needs a battery, and it doesn’t mean exporting solar is always a bad outcome.

But it does change the question.

Instead of asking:

“How much will I get paid for my excess solar?”

Ask:

“How much of my own energy can I use myself?”

That might mean better system sizing, shifting loads into solar hours, or storing surplus energy for later use.

The real value is often not in selling energy back.

It is in avoiding the need to buy it again.

That might mean designing solar around the site's daytime consumption. It might mean shifting loads into solar hours. And where the numbers make sense, it might mean storing surplus solar in a battery and using it later.

A battery isn't automatically the answer, and exporting energy isn't necessarily bad.

But the goal shouldn't be to become really good at selling electricity cheaply .It should be to keep more of the value your energy system is already creating. Treat energy like an asset.

Generate it. Use it. Store it where it makes sense. And avoid buying back tomorrow what you gave away cheaply today.