Sometimes, and it depends on the supplier. Ofgem’s guidance asks you to show that your installation and installer are suitably certified, and it accepts schemes other than MCS. Octopus publishes a documented route for customers with no certificate, for a £250 fee. Every route still needs an installer, which a plug-in kit doesn’t have.
That last sentence decides it for most readers of this site. The certification question has a more interesting answer than the shorthand suggests, and almost every guide gets it wrong in the same direction. The door that’s genuinely open leads somewhere a self-connected device can’t follow.
What the rules actually ask for
The Smart Export Guarantee doesn’t live in the SEG Order 2019 alone. Eligibility detail sits in Schedule A to Standard Licence Condition 57 of the electricity supply licence, and Ofgem’s guidance for generators is where it’s set out in English.
The scheme runs on small-scale renewable energy up to a total installed capacity of 5MW, or 50kW for micro-CHP. For solar PV, wind and micro-CHP at 50kW or less, Ofgem says applicants "will be asked to demonstrate that their installation and installer are suitably certified". A Microgeneration Certification Scheme certificate is given as the example, and the guidance then accepts that other schemes may be equivalent to it. Where you don’t hold one, paragraph 1.13 says the work and the person who did it "should be accredited in accordance with EN 45011 or EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012".
Then comes the sentence that explains everything else here. Paragraph 1.14: "If you are unable to demonstrate that your installation is suitably certified, a SEG licensee is not obliged to offer payments under the SEG, but they can make payments if they wish."
Certification isn’t a statutory bar on being paid, then. It’s the condition that switches on the licensee’s obligation. Below that line, paying you becomes a commercial choice.
MCS reads it more tightly. In a September 2023 statement, chief executive Ian Rippin wrote that "an energy company cannot offer their regulated SEG tariff to anyone who does not have an MCS certified installation", while noting that the Order "has always allowed energy companies the discretion to offer additional export tariffs that are non-regulated". Two primary sources, not quite agreed on how much room "equivalent" leaves. Our hub on how the export scheme works covers it end to end.
Regulated tariff, or just an export tariff?
The distinction matters more than the acronym. A regulated one is what a large supplier is obliged to offer, and that duty has applied to energy companies with 150,000 or more customers since 1 January 2020. A non-regulated one is offered by choice. Both put money in your account. Only the first carries the obligation.
Which licensees accept something other than MCS
We checked all twelve mandatory SEG licensees on Ofgem’s published list for the seventh scheme year, 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, against each company’s own criteria on 16 August 2026. Every one of them wants evidence that somebody certified the work. What they’ll take besides a Microgeneration Certification Scheme certificate differs a lot.
| Licensee (brand) | What else its own site accepts |
|---|---|
| British Gas Trading | Flexi-Orb certificate, or an "accreditation certificate" |
| E (Gas and Electricity) | "or equivalent" |
| E.ON Next Energy | Flexi-Orb certification |
| EDF Energy Customers | Flexi-Orb, named in its tariff terms and conditions; "accreditation certificates" |
| Electricity Plus Supply (Utility Warehouse) | "an equivalent scheme" |
| Foxglove Energy Supply (Outfox Energy) | Flexi-Orb, or "equivalent approved certification" |
| Fuse Energy Supply | "or equivalent" |
| Octopus Energy | Flexi-Orb, or a documented non-MCS route (below) |
| OVO Electricity | "or equivalent" |
| ScottishPower Energy Retail | Flexi-Orb, NICEIC, NAPIT "or a similar certification" |
| So Energy Trading | "or equivalent" |
| Utilita Energy | "(or equivalent)", covering both the work and the person |
Two things fall out of that. The first is that "you need MCS" is not what any of them say. All twelve name or allow something else, and ScottishPower goes furthest by naming NICEIC and NAPIT, which a competent electrician is far likelier to hold than a Microgeneration Certification Scheme registration. We cover ScottishPower’s SmartGen conditions in full separately.
The second is that "equivalent" is doing a lot of unexamined work. ScottishPower is the only one naming schemes beyond MCS and Flexi-Orb. The rest either stop at those two or use the open phrase and leave you to ask, which is what Ofgem’s guidance tells you to do anyway. OVO’s own eligibility wording is a fair example of how little the published criteria commit to.
We checked the four voluntary licensees too. Pozitive Energy and Ruby Electricity both want a certificate from MCS or an equivalent scheme. We couldn’t find published criteria on the websites of Smart Pay Energy or Voltx Power, so we’re making no claim about those two.
The Octopus route for export without MCS
Octopus is the one licensee of the twelve whose own site sets out a documented process for customers with no certificate. Its help article asks for three documents:
- An Electrical Installation Certificate
- A Building Regulations Certificate of Compliance, not applicable in Scotland
- A DNO Acceptance Letter
Alongside those, Octopus has to be your import provider, so the route is only open to an existing or incoming Octopus customer, there must be a working smart meter at the property, and there’s a £250 fee. Processing is given as two to three weeks once everything is in. We’ve kept those figures off our page on Octopus export rates, which owns the rate detail, because fees and rates move at different speeds.
Read the wording carefully, though. Octopus describes itself as "one of the few suppliers who’ll pay you for export without an MCS or Flexi-Orb certification", which is them telling you others exist. We haven’t found them published, so we’re naming none. If yours isn’t in the table above, ask before assuming.
The DNO approval letter is the least surprising item on that list, because notifying your network operator is already mandatory whatever you decide about export. Small generators go through G98; anything larger uses G99.
Why a plug-in kit can’t walk through either door
Every route above asks for a document somebody else signs.
The Microgeneration Certification Scheme certificate is raised by an MCS registered contractor for work that contractor carried out. Flexi-Orb operates the same way. NICEIC and NAPIT are competent person schemes for registered electrical contractors. The BS 7671 certificate on Octopus’s list records electrical work and is issued by whoever designed, built and tested it. The building control compliance certificate records notifiable work self-certified by a scheme member.
A plug-in device is designed so that none of that happens. You take it out of the box, put a BS 1363 plug into an existing socket, and no fixed wiring is altered. There’s no contractor, no certificate, and no notifiable work to certify. That isn’t a gap in the paperwork. It’s the point of the product.
From 27 August 2026 a compliant device can lawfully be sold and used in Great Britain. That creates no certification route for a kit you connect yourself.
Don’t buy a kit for the export income
If an export payment is part of how you’re justifying the purchase, the honest position is that you probably won’t get one. Buy on the basis of what you’ll use in the flat, and treat any export arrangement as a bonus that may never arrive.
Whether chasing certification is worth it anyway
For an 800 VA device the answer is usually no, and the arithmetic isn’t close.
A compliant device tops out at 800 VA of output and 3.5 A of current. Generating at that level on a weekday, most of what it produces gets absorbed by a fridge, a router and whatever else is drawing power before any of it reaches the grid. The government’s own estimate of annual savings from plug-in solar is £70 to £110, and a balcony sits at the low end, because the upper figure models a 30 degree south-facing array rather than a near-vertical railing. Almost all of that is electricity you didn’t buy, rather than electricity you export to the grid and get paid for.
Set an administration fee of that size against the surplus from a device that size and the payback gets uncomfortable to write down. Our guide to the self-consumption maths for a plug-in kit has the detail, and what each licensee currently pays has the rates if you want to run it yourself. Energy storage would change the balance by holding surplus back for the evening, but battery storage sits outside the statutory definition the plug-in route depends on.
None of this applies to a proper rooftop system. With 4kW on a roof, certification is worth having and the export income is real. The proportionality point is specific to small-scale devices like these.
What 27 August 2026 changes for export payments
Nothing that we can find. We read the government’s response to the plug-in solar consultation looking for it. The Smart Export Guarantee appears twice, both times summarising what respondents raised rather than what government committed to. The Microgeneration Certification Scheme isn’t mentioned anywhere in it, under either name.
The commitments are about the regulatory amendments, the final specification, consumer guidance, G98 arrangements, enforcement and a long-term British standard. Export arrangements aren’t among them. What actually changes on 27 August 2026 has the full before-and-after.
One geographic note. The scheme covers Great Britain only. Ofgem requires the generating equipment to be located there, and Northern Ireland sits outside it.
Frequently asked questions
Is an MCS certificate mandatory for SEG? Not in Ofgem’s wording. Its guidance asks that the work and the installer are suitably certified, gives the Microgeneration Certification Scheme as the example, and accepts equivalents. MCS itself reads the rules more tightly. In practice the licensee decides what evidence it will take.
Can I get SEG without an MCS certificate? With some licensees, yes. Octopus publishes a route needing the three documents listed above, for a fee. ScottishPower accepts NICEIC or NAPIT certificates. Both still need work carried out by a registered contractor.
Which suppliers offer export tariffs without requiring MCS certification? Of the twelve mandatory licensees we checked in August 2026, Octopus is the only one publishing an explicit process, and ScottishPower publishes the widest list of accepted schemes. Octopus calls itself one of a few doing this, so ask your own licensee rather than assuming.
What certificates do I need besides MCS? Depending on the licensee: Flexi-Orb, NICEIC or NAPIT, or accreditation to EN 45011 or EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012. You’ll also need an export meter capable of half-hourly measurement, an export MPAN, and proof you own the equipment.
Can I get SEG payments if I have DIY solar panels? Only if a registered contractor certified the work. Self-installed generation has nobody to issue a certificate, so it fails on every published route we found. A licensee can still choose to pay you. Nothing obliges it to.
Can I get SEG without a smart meter? No. Your export has to be metered by something capable of half-hourly measurement, with an export MPAN. A meter readable remotely saves you submitting manual readings.
Does a plug-in kit qualify after legalisation? Legalisation makes a compliant device lawful to sell and use in Great Britain from 27 August 2026. It creates no certification route, and the consultation response makes no commitment on export. The position is unchanged.
Can I claim from two licensees at once? No. You can hold one export arrangement at a time, and it needn’t be with your energy supplier. You also can’t claim while receiving an export payment under the Feed-in Tariff.
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If you’re weighing up a kit and this question is what’s holding you up, it probably shouldn’t be. Size the decision on how much solar energy you’ll use, not on what you’ll sell.