Your solar power flows first into your own devices – that is self-consumption. What is left over automatically goes into the grid, and your utility remunerates it. The decisive difference lies in the money: Self-consumed electricity saves you the full purchase price, fed-in electricity brings only a fraction of it. (As of: July 2026)
In this chapter, you'll learn
- what actually happens with the electricity from the roof – and why you don't have to lift a finger for it;
- why a self-consumed kilowatt hour is roughly two to four times as valuable as a fed-in one;
- why a household without doing anything only uses part of its production itself – and what can be changed about that.
What happens to the electricity from the roof?
The short version: It always takes the nearest route. If the system produces, the devices in the own house are served first – refrigerator, router, boiler, whatever is running. Only what the house does not need at this moment flows via the meter into the public grid. And if the system delivers less than the house demands, the difference is added from the grid as before.
All this happens by itself, newly in every second. There is no switch you flick, no app where you would have to release anything. Physics regulates the traffic, the meter logs it: It measures in one direction what you feed in, and in the other what you draw.
There are two terms for these two directions that you will encounter everywhere from now on. Self-consumption is the solar power that you use yourself at the moment of production. Feed-in (often also Einspeisung in German) is the surplus that you hand over to the grid. This chapter doesn't need any more vocabulary.
Where does the money flow?
This is where it gets interesting, because the two directions are anything but financially equivalent. Your electricity bill consists of the energy itself, the grid usage and various levies – together roughly 25 to 35 Rappen per kilowatt hour depending on the municipality. If you consume your solar power yourself, you save this entire amount, because the electricity from the roof doesn't touch the public grid at all.
If, on the other hand, you feed in, the utility only remunerates you for the value of the energy – depending on the utility and model, between the statutory lower limit and around 14 Rappen. Grid usage and levies are not reimbursed; after all, you do not incur them.
| Direction | What happens | What it brings you |
|---|---|---|
| Self-consumption | Electricity flows from the roof directly into your devices | saves the full purchase tariff: roughly 25–35 Rp./kWh |
| Export | Surplus flows into the grid, the utility remunerates it | depending on utility around 6–14 Rp./kWh |
Guideline values, as of: July 2026. Your local electricity tariff and the tariff sheet of your grid operator are decisive – the tariffs are adjusted periodically.
From this table follows the most important sentence of the whole chapter: A self-consumed kilowatt hour is roughly two to four times as valuable as a fed-in one. Not because feeding in would be bad – but because self-consuming is so much better. Whoever has understood why has understood the economic core of the entire solar calculation.
How high the remuneration specifically turns out for you depends on the grid area – the differences in the region are considerable. The large feed-in tariff comparison provides an overview of the models and tariffs of the utilities; that there is a statutory minimum remuneration, nationwide since 2026, is one of the reassuring innovations.
Why doesn't the house simply consume everything itself?
Because production and consumption do not take place at the same time. The system delivers the most around midday – exactly when many houses are empty. Household consumption is concentrated on mornings and evenings, when the sun delivers little or nothing anymore. This gap is the reason why a typical household, based on experience, only uses about a quarter to a third of its production itself without special measures. The rest flows as a surplus into the grid – at the lower tariff.
That sounds sobering, but it is not fate. The self-consumption rate – that's the name of the share of production that you use yourself – is an adjusting screw, and one with several gears. The simplest ones cost nothing: washing machine, dishwasher and boiler run at midday instead of in the evening, via timer or start preselection. Then come the large consumers: A heat pump that preferably heats when the sun is shining, or an e-car that charges during the day, shift a lot of energy into the right hours. And finally the battery, which saves the midday production into the evening.
Whether and when these three large building blocks make sense is exactly the topic of the next chapter. The concrete handles for everyone who already has a system are in the guide Optimising self-consumption. For now, the insight is enough: The rate can be shaped, and the first steps are free.
Do I have to choose between self-consumption and feeding in?
No – that is perhaps the most persistent misunderstanding on this topic. You are not making a choice between two models; both happen anyway, every day, side by side. The question is only in what proportion.
It also follows from this that a system should not be as small as possible «so that everything is consumed by yourself». The additional modules onto the full roof are the cheapest of the whole system, and their surplus is at least remunerated – moreover, your own consumption grows for most families over the years, for example with an e-car. The strategy that proves itself: dimension the system according to the roof, increase self-consumption with simple means, feed in the rest at the best possible tariff. The detailed derivation including profitability is in the guide on the question of self-consumption or feed-in.
Go deeper on this topic
Read more from the guide: – Self-consumption or feeding in: What is more profitable? — the complete calculation behind the 2–4× rule of thumb – Optimising self-consumption: the six levers — from the free timer to the battery, ordered by effort – Feed-in tariffs in the region: the big comparison — what the utilities pay for your surplus – Reading the electricity bill with photovoltaics — where self-consumption and feed-in appear on the bill
### Keep in mind Self-consumed solar power is roughly two to four times as valuable as fed-in power – when it comes to money, almost everything therefore revolves around a single number: your self-consumption rate.
In brief
Do I have to switch or control anything in everyday life? No. The electricity automatically takes the nearest route, the meter keeps the directions apart, the billing comes from the utility. Controlling is only worthwhile in one direction: placing large consumers in the sunshine hours – voluntarily, because it pays off.
Where does my electricity come from at night and in winter? Quite normally from the grid, as before. System and grid complement each other: What comes from the roof, you use first; what is missing, you draw in addition. In everyday life you do not notice any difference – only on the bill.
Where do I see how much I consume myself? In the monitoring app of your system – or arithmetically from production minus feed-in, divided by production. A look after the first year of operation is worthwhile: It shows which lever would bring you the most.
Solar-Guide: ← Chapter 5: Incentives in 5 minutes · To the guide overview · Chapter 7: Battery, heat pump, e-car →
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Sources: ElCom (electricity price overviews), tariff sheets of the regional grid operators, Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE; bandwidths taken 1:1 from the tariff guide (R14).
Last updated: 9 July 2026 · Author: ecoEn editorial team
