Contact Energy vs Genesis Energy Solar Buy-Back

If you're choosing between Contact and Genesis to sell your solar export to, the headline is this: both pay a flat buy-back rate that sits well below the daytime rate you pay to buy power, and as of 2025 both hover in the 8 to 17 cents per kWh range depending on the plan and any time-of-use sweeteners. Neither is the highest payer in the country. The real money, though, isn't in the export rate at all. It's in what each does to your daily fixed charge, your usage rates, and how much of your own solar you can use before it ever hits the grid. Get that wrong and a "great" buy-back rate can quietly cost you more than a mediocre one.

Why this comparison matters more than the buy-back number

Most people pick a solar retailer by Googling the buy-back rate and choosing the bigger number. That's exactly the mistake the maths punishes.

For a typical grid-tied home in Aotearoa, you'll self-consume somewhere between 30% and 50% of what your panels make, and export the rest. That self-consumed power is worth the full retail rate you'd otherwise have paid (often 28 to 38 cents per kWh per Electricity Authority retail pricing data). The exported surplus is only worth the buy-back rate.

So a plan with a slightly lower buy-back but lower daytime usage and a lower daily charge will frequently beat a plan with a flashy export rate. The export number is the part installers and retailers wave around, because it's the easy sell. The daily charge and the usage rate are where your actual bill is decided.

The daily fixed charge: the bit nobody mentions

Here's the piece that catches people out, and it's the single most important thing to understand before you sign with either gentailer.

Your daily fixed charge (the lines and supply charge you pay every single day, whether you use power or not) does not change because you have solar. Solar reduces your usage charges and earns you export credits. It does nothing to the fixed daily charge.

For years, the Government's Low Fixed Charge regulations let low-use homes pay a capped daily charge (around 30 cents a day in many regions). Those regulations were phased out, with the final step completed by 1 April 2022 per MBIE, and standard daily charges have climbed since. Depending on your network, a standard daily charge today commonly sits between $1.50 and $3.00 a day, which is $550 to $1,095 a year before you've used a single kilowatt-hour.

That matters enormously for solar households, because solar people are often low grid-use people. You generate your own power by day, so your grid imports drop. But your fixed charge doesn't. So the question becomes: which retailer, on which plan, gives you the lowest standing cost combined with the best treatment of the power you actually move?

The trap: a high buy-back attached to a high daily charge

This is the bit you won't find spelled out on a sales page. A retailer can advertise an attractive export rate and quietly pair it with a higher fixed daily charge or a higher anytime usage rate. For a solar home exporting, say, 3,000 kWh a year, an extra 5c/kWh of buy-back is worth about $150 a year. An extra 50c a day on the fixed charge costs you $182.50 a year. The "better" plan just lost you money.

Always compare the whole plan, not the headline rate. We walk through how to read a full tariff properly over here: https://nzsolarcentre.com/your-guide-to-nz-solar-tariffs-and-retailers/.

Contact Energy: how their solar offer works

Contact is one of the big four gentailers (generator-retailers) and has run a solar buy-back offer for a long time. Their structure is generally straightforward: a flat buy-back rate for every kilowatt-hour you export, credited against your bill.

Contact's published buy-back has historically sat in the 8 to 12c/kWh band for its standard offer, with promotional or higher tiers appearing from time to time. Because rates move, check Contact's current solar pricing directly rather than trusting any number you read online (including older blog posts).

What to look at on a Contact plan:

• The flat export rate, and whether it's a fixed contractual rate or one Contact can change with notice.
• The daily charge for your address and network, since Contact operates nationwide across Vector, Orion, Wellington Electricity, Powerco and others, and the daily charge varies by network.
• The anytime or day usage rate, because that's what your self-consumed solar is effectively saving you, and what your unavoidable winter evening imports cost you.
• Whether the buy-back is capped in any way (some retailers cap export credits at your import value so you can't run a net-negative bill that pays you cash).

Contact's strength is simplicity and the stability of a large gentailer. A flat rate is easy to model and easy to trust. The downside is that flat rates rarely reward you for exporting at the right time, and they don't move with the wholesale market the way some newer plans do.

Genesis Energy: how their solar offer works

Genesis is the largest electricity and gas retailer in the country by customer numbers, and it runs its own solar buy-back. Like Contact, Genesis has typically offered a flat buy-back rate credited to your account, sitting in a broadly similar band to Contact's standard offer.

Genesis also bundles gas, which is genuinely relevant if you're on mains gas for hot water or cooking. Being able to keep electricity and gas on one account, with one daily charge structure, sometimes shifts the total-cost picture in Genesis's favour even when the export rate is line-ball with a competitor. That's a real-world advantage that pure-electricity comparisons miss.

Things to check on a Genesis plan:

• The current buy-back rate and whether it's the standard or a higher promotional tier.
• Any reward-scheme or loyalty element (Genesis has run various reward and discount mechanics over the years; understand whether the solar rate stacks with those or replaces them).
• The daily charge and usage rate for your specific network.
• If you use gas, the combined electricity-and-gas position, not just the power side.

Contact vs. Genesis: the honest head-to-head

For most solar homes, Contact and Genesis land remarkably close together. They're both large, stable gentailers offering flat buy-back rates in a similar range, with daily charges driven mostly by your local network rather than by the retailer's own margin.

Where they differ in practice:

• Gas: if you're a dual-fuel household, Genesis's combined offer is worth modelling seriously.
• Rate stability: both offer the reassurance of scale, so neither is likely to vanish or yank a rate overnight without notice.
• Promotions: the "winner" on export rate flips back and forth depending on who's running a campaign that month. Don't lock in based on a promo that resets in 12 months.

The uncomfortable truth: neither gentailer is the highest solar payer in New Zealand. If maximising export income is your single priority, you'll usually do better with retailers built around solar and time-of-use export. The trade-off is that those plans are more complex and shift more risk onto you.

Where the bigger buy-backs actually live

If your roof exports a lot, especially in the high-sun upper North Island, it's worth understanding the time-of-use export plans before you settle for a flat rate. Octopus Energy NZ runs export options worth reading up on here: https://nzsolarcentre.com/octopus-energy-solar-tariffs-nz/. Ecotricity's peak-export approach is explained here: https://nzsolarcentre.com/ecotricity-resi-flex-solar-export/. And Meridian's solar plans are broken down here: https://nzsolarcentre.com/meridian-energy-solar-plan-nz/.

The pattern across all of them: higher peak-time export rates reward you for exporting in the early evening, which a plain solar system without a battery struggles to do (your panels make the most at midday, when export rates are often lowest). That's the catch nobody mentions when they quote you a juicy peak number.

A worked example: same house, two plans

Let's make this real. Take a 1970s brick-and-tile place in Papakura on the Vector network, with a 6kW system generating roughly 8,500 kWh a year (a realistic Auckland yield per NIWA solar irradiance data for the region). The household self-consumes about 40%, so:

• Self-consumed: 3,400 kWh, saving the daytime usage rate.
• Exported: 5,100 kWh, earning the buy-back rate.

Plan A (higher buy-back, higher daily charge): 14c/kWh export, $2.30/day fixed, 30c/kWh usage.

• Export income: 5,100 × $0.14 = $714
• Self-consumption saving: 3,400 × $0.30 = $1,020
• Annual fixed charge: 365 × $2.30 = $839.50

Plan B (lower buy-back, lower daily charge): 10c/kWh export, $1.65/day fixed, 28c/kWh usage.

• Export income: 5,100 × $0.10 = $510
• Self-consumption saving: 3,400 × $0.28 = $952
• Annual fixed charge: 365 × $1.65 = $602.25

Plan A earns $204 more on export but costs $237.25 more in fixed charges. Plan B's lower usage rate trims the self-consumption saving by $68, but its overall standing cost is markedly lower. Net result: Plan B is roughly $101 a year cheaper to live with, despite the worse-looking buy-back. The headline rate lied.

The numbers above are illustrative, not current published rates. The point is the method: model the whole plan against your real generation and self-consumption, not the export rate in isolation. There's an interactive tool that does this maths for you here: https://nzsolarcentre.com/tariff-buy-back-engine/.

The self-consumption lever (and why it beats both buy-backs)

Here's the bit that genuinely changes the game, and it applies no matter which gentailer you choose.

Every kWh you use yourself is worth the full retail rate (28 to 38c). Every kWh you export is worth the buy-back (8 to 17c). So shifting one kilowatt-hour from "exported" to "self-consumed" is worth roughly 20c to you. That's a bigger lever than any difference between Contact and Genesis.

Practical ways to pull it:

• Run the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer in the middle of the day, on a timer, while the sun's up.
• Heat your hot water cylinder during the day rather than overnight. A simple timer or a hot-water diverter turns your cylinder into a cost-effective thermal battery.
• Pre-cool or pre-heat with the heat pump at midday in the shoulder seasons.
• Charge the EV on a sunny afternoon instead of overnight where your routine allows.

Get your self-consumption from 40% up to 55% on that Papakura system and you've moved about 1,275 kWh from export to use, worth around $255 a year, which dwarfs the gentailer-versus-gentailer difference.

Who should think twice about a flat-rate gentailer plan

Honesty time. A Contact or Genesis flat buy-back is a sensible, low-fuss default for a lot of homes. But it isn't right for everyone:

• Big exporters with low daytime occupancy. If the house is empty all day and you're dumping most of your generation to the grid, a flat 10c rate is leaving money on the table. Look hard at time-of-use export, or at a battery to time-shift.
• Battery owners. If you can store midday surplus and export (or use) it during the evening peak, a flat rate wastes that capability. Plans that pay more for peak export suit you better.
• Heavy gas users considering ditching gas. Genesis's dual-fuel advantage evaporates if you're about to electrify, so don't sign a long gas deal on the strength of a solar rate.

What to do before you sign with either

1. Pull your last 12 months of usage from your current retailer's app or a bill. You need your annual kWh and a rough day-versus-night split.
2. Estimate your generation and self-consumption. A good installer gives you both; if they only quote generation, push for a self-consumption estimate based on your occupancy.
3. Get the full plan in writing from both Contact and Genesis: export rate, daily charge for your exact address, anytime/day/night usage rates, and whether export credits are capped.
4. Model the whole plan against your numbers, the way the worked example above does. Don't compare buy-back rates in isolation.
5. Check the change-of-rate terms. Can the retailer alter the export rate, and with how much notice? A flat rate is only as good as the contract that protects it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Contact or Genesis pay the highest solar buy-back in New Zealand?

Usually neither. Both are competitive, stable flat-rate payers, but specialist and time-of-use export plans from other retailers often pay more for peak-time export. The catch is that those higher rates reward exporting in the evening, which a battery-less system can't do well, so the headline number doesn't always translate into more money for your home.

Will solar lower my daily fixed charge with Contact or Genesis?

No. The daily fixed charge is a standing supply and lines cost set largely by your local network, and it doesn't change because you have solar. Solar reduces your usage charges and earns export credits, but you keep paying the fixed charge every day. That's exactly why the daily charge matters so much when comparing plans.

Why did my daily charge go up after the low fixed charge rules ended?

The Government's Low Fixed Charge regulations, which capped daily charges for low-use homes, were phased out with the final step completed by 1 April 2022 according to MBIE. Standard daily charges have generally risen since, which hits low-grid-use solar households in particular. It's one of the main reasons to scrutinise the fixed charge, not just the export rate.

Is Genesis better than Contact if I have gas?

Often, yes, on a total-cost basis, because keeping electricity and gas on one Genesis account can simplify your billing and sometimes improves the combined deal. But model the whole position, and don't lock into a long gas contract if you're planning to electrify your hot water or cooking, because the advantage disappears the moment you drop gas.

Can my solar export credits make Contact or Genesis pay me cash?

Generally not. Most retailers credit export against your bill, and many cap credits so you can't run a net-negative account that pays out cash. Always check whether export credits are capped at your import value or can carry over, because it affects high-export, low-import homes the most.

How much of my solar will I actually use versus export?

For a typical grid-tied NZ home, expect to self-consume 30% to 50% of generation, with the rest exported. The exact split depends on when you're home, your appliances and whether you shift loads to the middle of the day. Pushing self-consumption higher is worth more than any difference between gentailer buy-back rates, because self-consumed power saves you the full retail rate.

Should I switch retailers just for a better buy-back rate?

Only after you've modelled the full plan, including the daily charge and usage rates, against your actual generation and self-consumption. A higher buy-back paired with a higher daily charge frequently costs more overall. Compare the total annual cost of living on each plan, not the export headline.

Do these rates change, and how often should I check?

Yes, retailers adjust solar rates and run promotions periodically, so any figure you read online dates quickly. Check the retailer's current published solar pricing directly before signing, and re-check your plan against the market every year or so, especially when fixed-term deals roll over.

The Bottom Line

Contact and Genesis are both solid, stable homes for your solar export, and for many households the choice between them comes down to gas, current promotions and personal preference more than the buy-back number itself. Just don't let the headline export rate make the decision for you. The daily fixed charge, your usage rate and how much of your own sunshine you use before it ever reaches the grid will decide your bill far more than a few cents on the buy-back.

If you want to pressure-test a specific offer against your own roof and habits, the interactive tool here does the full-plan maths for you: https://nzsolarcentre.com/tariff-buy-back-engine/. And if you're still weighing up retailers more broadly, the wider rundown on tariffs is worth a read: https://nzsolarcentre.com/your-guide-to-nz-solar-tariffs-and-retailers/.