Zero export 2026: solar power for your own use only
With zero export, a 6 kWp system keeps 1,425 kWh in the house, throttles away 4,751 kWh and forgoes €366 of feed-in payment a year. A 5 kWh battery cuts the loss to 3,574 kWh.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
What zero export costs you
Lost without export
3,574 kWh
| Feed-in income forgone per year | €275 |
| Self-used stays | 2,606 kWh |
| Saving stays | €943 |
Zero export (Nulleinspeisung) means a PV system sends no power into the public grid. A meter at the house connection tells the inverter the household load at every moment, and the inverter throttles its output so that nothing flows out through the meter. Financially, the owner gives up the feed-in tariff. On the national average, a south-facing 6 kWp system produces 6,314 kWh a year; a household using 4,000 kWh consumes 1,425 kWh of it. The remaining 4,751 kWh, 75 % of output, would be worth €366 a year at 7.70 ct/kWh, or €7,316 over 20 years. A 5 kWh battery brings much of it into the house and leaves only 3,574 kWh. Under current law, a system without export must still be entered in the Market Master Data Register. The government draft of the EEG 2027 would free such systems from technical duties and pay small new systems only briefly; zero export would then become a serious option.
How zero export works technically
The normal case for a rooftop system is surplus export: whatever the house does not need flows through the bidirectional meter into the grid and is paid for. With zero export, an additional energy meter sits behind the house connection and measures the balance of import and export. As soon as the balance points towards the grid, the inverter throttles until it is back at zero. Short spikes, for instance when a kettle switches off, cannot be avoided entirely; that is why the draft bill speaks of “technically unavoidable” and “negligibly small amounts”. A battery does not change the principle, it only shifts when throttling has to start: the inverter curtails only once the battery is full.
What is lost
What is lost is the part of output that can neither be used immediately nor stored. The quarter-hour simulation with the 74 household load profiles from HTW Berlin shows for a 6 kWp system on the national average:
| 6 kWp, 4,000 kWh | no battery | 5 kWh battery | 10 kWh battery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Output | 6,314 kWh | 6,314 kWh | 6,314 kWh |
| Used at home | 1,425 kWh | 2,606 kWh | 2,958 kWh |
| Throttled with zero export | 4,751 kWh | 3,574 kWh | 3,225 kWh |
| Feed-in income forgone per year | €366 | €275 | €248 |
| Saving on grid power | €516 | €943 | €1,071 |
Two things stand out. First, without a battery you give up 75.2 % of the output; on sunny days the system runs at full power for only part of the time. Second, the loss in euros is modest, because the feed-in tariff per kilowatt-hour is only a fraction of the electricity price. The real economics lie in the saving, and that is just as high with zero export as with export. Smaller systems lose proportionally less: 3 kWp with a 5 kWh battery throttle away only 1,052 kWh a year.
Who zero export pays off for
The calculation is simple: zero export costs the feed-in payment the system would otherwise have earned, and saves at most the cost of the meter change and billing. For the 6 kWp system with a 5 kWh battery, that is €275 a year or €5,504 over 20 years, without interest. The equipment you avoid would have to be worth at least that. This works best for small systems sized to the base load, for homes with high daytime consumption, for instance from home working, a heat pump or air conditioning, and for buildings whose connection cannot take additional export. If you fill a large roof, zero export throws away a lot of power and a lot of money. The rule of thumb is therefore: size the system to your consumption first, then decide on export, not the other way round.
Which duties remain
Even without export, the system is connected to the grid, because the house still draws power. Under current law, therefore, a registered electrician notifies the grid operator, who checks the system against its technical connection conditions and may ask for proof that the control really limits export to zero. Entry in the Market Master Data Register remains compulsory, for system and battery; the steps are under Market Master Data Register. The technical requirements of section 9 EEG apply today in principle regardless of export. The 60.0 % cap, by contrast, only concerns systems on the feed-in tariff and has no effect on a system that exports nothing anyway.
Zero export or unpaid export
Besides the tariff, the EEG provides for free acceptance (unentgeltliche Abnahme, section 21(1) sentence 1 no. 2 EEG): the surplus flows into the grid and the grid operator pays nothing. Financially this is the same for the owner as zero export, but technically simpler, as no control at the house connection is needed, and the power gets used rather than discarded. Zero export has its place where the grid operator does not allow export, or only after lengthy grid reinforcement, on outbuildings with a weak connection, or where the owner wants to avoid billing altogether.
Why the topic grows with the EEG 2027
The government draft of the EEG 2027 itself expects more systems to be built without export. New systems below 25 kW would receive no EEG support after a 36-month transition payment; after that, direct marketing, free acceptance or zero export remain. At the same time, the draft exempts zero-export systems from the requirements of the new section 9(2) and from the permanent cap at 50.0 %. For a system connected in 2026, nothing changes: it keeps the EEG 2023 tariff. If you are planning now, it is better to calculate with export and keep zero export as a later option, since switching is a matter of control settings, not of panels. How big the battery should be is shown under battery size, the details of the draft under feed-in tariff 2027.