RECs vs Selling Electricity Back to the Grid: 2 Ways Solar Panels Earn Money in Singapore

Most homeowners think of solar energy as a way to bring their electricity bill down. That is the obvious win, but it is not the only one. A solar installation can also generate two separate income streams at the same time.

One pays you for the surplus electricity your panels push back into the national grid. The other pays you for the environmental certificate those same kilowatt-hours produce. They are priced differently, paid by different parties, and come with different trade-offs.

How Does Solar Export Work in Singapore?

Your panels power the house first. Whatever your appliances do not use right then gets exported to the national grid, measured by a bi-directional meter that counts what flows out.

That order matters more than any export rate. This is because every unit you use directly means you are not buying it from the grid at the full retail rate. The same unit that you export earns you less than what you saved by using it yourself. This means that self-consumption is where the real savings come from, and export is the bonus on top.

How You Get Paid for Exporting Electricity

What you get for your exported electricity comes down to who you buy your electricity from.

Two schemes cover it, split by whether you are with SP Group or an Open Electricity Market (OEM) retailer.

1. Simplified Credit Treatment (SCT) Scheme

The SCT scheme applies if you buy your electricity from SP Group and your system is less than 1 MWac.

The credit rate is the regulated tariff with grid charges removed, so you receive less per kWh than you pay to import, with the exact margin depending on the prevailing quarterly rate.

Credits appear on your monthly electricity bill, offsetting your electricity imports, water charges, and refuse removal.
The export rate is reviewed quarterly and moves broadly with the regulated tariff.
Best for homeowners who want stable, predictable monthly credits without market swings.

2. Enhanced Central Intermediary Scheme (ECIS)

The ECIS scheme applies if you buy from an OEM retailer and your system is less than 10 MWac.

Exported electricity is paid at the half-hourly wholesale rate, the Uniform Singapore Energy Price (USEP), which moves through the day.
Wholesale prices have increasingly dipped below the SCT export rate, so ECIS does not always pay more.
You receive three separate bills each month: your retailer contract, a water and refuse bill, and a separate export bill.

SCT	ECIS
Who it is for	SP Group customers, system under 1 MWac	OEM retailer customers, system under 10 MWac
Export rate	Regulated tariff with grid charges removed; exact margin reviewed quarterly	Half-hourly wholesale price (USEP), fluctuates
Billing	One offset on your monthly electricity bill	Three separate monthly bills
Best for	Stable, predictable credits	Homeowners comfortable with a variable rate

Is Selling Excess Electricity Worth It?

Both schemes pay you for what you export, but neither changes the underlying priority. As mentioned, export is worth having, but it works as a bonus rather than the sole reason to install these panels.

To get more of your solar panels working in your favour:

Run the air-conditioning and other high-load appliances during daylight hours.
Schedule washing machines, dishwashers, and EV charging for the daytime.

Selling Electricity Back to the Grid: A Closer Look

The earlier overview covered how export works and what each scheme pays. Two other factors affect both how your export is priced and how quickly you can start.

The pricing split comes down to your consumer type:

Non-contestable consumers on SP Group are paid at the prevailing regulated tariff minus grid charges, under the SCT scheme.
Contestable consumers on OEM retailers are paid at the half-hourly wholesale electricity price, via ECIS.

Grid charges are the part that catches most homeowners off guard. They come off your export credit because they cover the maintenance and transport of electricity across the network, which SP Group runs and your household does not pay for separately.

One timing note: Once your Licensed Electrical Worker (LEW) confirms the technical requirements are met and submits the application, SP Group inspects and activates the connection within 10 calendar days. Panels can power the house before that, but cannot export.

Selling Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs): A Closer Look

Everything so far has been about selling electricity. RECs work on a different principle entirely.

A Renewable Energy Certificate, or REC, is a digital certificate proving that one megawatt-hour, which is 1,000 kWh, of renewable energy was generated and fed into the grid. Each REC carries a unique serial number, so a single unit of green energy is only ever counted once and cannot be double-claimed.

What makes a REC useful is that it sells separately from the electricity it represents. The electricity and the certificate come from the same source, but they go to different buyers.

How it works in Singapore:

The system owner registers their system on a recognised registry, either I-REC or TIGR.
Certificates are minted from verified generation data, then sold to corporations offsetting their carbon footprint or meeting ESG reporting requirements.
Buyers are typically multinationals, large corporates with net-zero commitments, and companies required to report under sustainability frameworks.
Once a REC is retired, it cannot be resold. The retirement is the buyer’s proof of their renewable energy claim.

There is a catch for homeowners, and it is scale:

RECs are issued in 1 MWh batches, so you need to generate at least 10,000 kWh (10 MWh) a year to qualify directly.
Most landed homes clear this, generating around 10 MWh of solar a year on average.
Senoko Energy’s Circle of Green programme makes REC participation available to landed homeowners of all property types, with no direct registry involvement. Even an inter-terrace with a 5 kWp system qualifies.

One caveat: Selling your RECs passes the green claim to whoever buys them. As such, you will not be able to say that your home runs on 100% solar power once those certificates belong to someone else.

RECs vs Selling Energy Back to the Grid: The Key Differences

Feature	Selling electricity to the grid	Selling RECs
What you sell	The surplus electricity itself	The green credit attached to that electricity
Who pays you	SP Group under SCT, or your OEM retailer under ECIS	Corporations buying green credits, via a programme like Circle of Green
Eligibility	Any system that exports to the grid	Around 10 MWh a year to sell directly, or any size through Circle of Green
How you are paid	A monthly credit on your bill (SCT) or the wholesale rate (ECIS)	Per REC, roughly S$15 each, subject to market changes
The catch	Export earns less than using the power yourself	Selling the REC gives away your renewable claim

Can You Do Both?

Both streams can run at the same time. If your solar panel system is large enough, you can sell surplus electricity to the grid under SCT or ECIS and separately register and sell RECs. The two do not cancel out, because one sells the energy and the other sells the certificate.

The rule from earlier still holds, though: sell the REC and the green claim goes with it. Neither stream changes the underlying maths either. For most landed homeowners in Singapore, the biggest return comes from using solar panels directly and avoiding the retail rate.

How FOMO Energy Helps You Maximise Both

A roof that underperforms exports less electricity and mints fewer RECs, so both payments drop together. Keeping generation at full output is what protects them.

FOMO Energy works with Senoko Energy’s Circle of Green programme, which lets landed homeowners run both streams together: selling green attributes converted into RECs to Senoko, and selling unused solar energy to SP Group at the same time. RECs are valued at roughly S$15 each, subject to market changes, with a small admin fee. A semi-detached home with a 10 kWp system generating around 12,500 kWh a year can expect somewhere between S$165 and S$210 a year from RECs alone. Senoko handles the conversion and the payments. You sign up and receive the income.

This is where FOMO Energy’s REConnect programme comes into the picture.

REConnect runs 24/7 fault detection using our proprietary algorithm alongside data from the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore, so a fault that would otherwise eat into your generation gets caught early.

Both income streams start with a solar panel installation in Singapore that is sized and built to perform, and stay healthy through monitoring that does not stop at handover. Whether you are buying outright or looking at rent-to-own solar panels, that is the conversation worth having first.

Speak to our team and get a quote to see how both streams work for your system and usage.