Charts and dashboards

Shift to 10kW export limits

Distributors' progress voluntarily increasing their default export limit to 10kW or more for residential connections.

  • Solar
  • Distribution

Progress tracker

This tracker shows the progress distributors are making to voluntarily increase their default export limit to 10kW or more for residential connections.

It uses a traffic light system to show whether distributors have default export limits of 10kW or more, are in the process of increasing them, or aren’t currently considering changes. We will update the tracker every month.

Following consultation in late 2025, distributors will be required to set a default 10kW export for straightforward, small-scale distributed generation.

This new rule comes into effect in early to mid-May 2026 and will ensure all distributors are setting at least 10kW limits for small-scale distributed generation where they can – although this won’t be possible everywhere on networks.

The new rule is part of a package of changes to make export limits more efficient for all types of distributed generation, including solar and wind farms.

Maximising benefits from local electricity generation

What are export limits?

Export limits are caps on how much electricity distributed generation – like rooftop solar and batteries – can export to the network at any one time. These limits are a necessary and important tool to help distributors maintain the safety and reliability of their networks.

Why export limits matter

Under the current rules, distributors have wide discretion when setting export limits, with some using a blanket 5kW for residential connections.

This limit is likely unnecessarily low for many parts of the network, meaning the amount of electricity supplied to networks is being unnecessarily curtailed.

Increasing the default export limits, where it is safe to do so, to more efficient levels helps maximise households’ contributions to the local electricity networks, enabling more clean, cheap and local energy to power communities.

We recognise the shift can be more challenging for some distributors due to varying network capacity, costs or other constraints.