Tariffs and grants / Supplier landscape / E.ON Next supplier profile

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E.ON Next supplier profile

Major supplier with smart tariffs for EV, heat and batteries.

Company status, customer and market figures, and tariff terms in this profile were checked on 22 July 2026. Historical figures retain the date stated with them.

E.ON Next is the household energy brand of E.ON UK, part of the German group E.ON SE, supplying around 5 million homes with gas and electricity. It is the third-largest of the former Big Six suppliers, behind Octopus Energy and British Gas, and held 17.1% of the domestic electricity market and 14.4% of the domestic gas market as of July 2023. For a home running solar panels, a battery, an EV or a heat pump, E.ON Next has a separate tariff aimed at each of those loads, four export tariffs under the SEG (Smart Export Guarantee) and its own solar installation service.

From Powergen and Npower to E.ON Next

E.ON UK grew out of Powergen, set up in 1989 as a UK government-owned generator, privatised in the first half of the 1990s and bought by the German group E.ON in 2002. The E.ON Next retail brand followed the acquisition of Npower in 2019, and Npower’s residential customers were moved onto E.ON Next in 2021. E.ON gained Npower through the Innogy asset swap with RWE, after a proposed merger between Npower and SSE collapsed in 2018. The Npower name now runs only in the commercial market, as npower Business Solutions, supplying more than 20,000 businesses.

The UK arm is registered at Trinity House, 2 Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4BX, company number 03782443.

Standard, fixed and tracker import tariffs

Next Flex is the standard variable tariff. It has variable prices, no fixed term and no exit fees, and its rates track the Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) price cap. A typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit is set to pay around £1,862 a year from July to September 2026, a figure that moves each time Ofgem resets the cap.

Next Pledge is a 12-month tracker that E.ON holds below the price cap, roughly £50 a year below the cap average on its own figures, with rates that drop automatically if the cap falls. It carries a £25 exit fee per fuel and needs a direct debit and a smart meter. The fixed range covers Next Fixed 12m with a £50 exit fee per fuel, Next Fixed 24m with a £100 exit fee per fuel and Next Gust, a 12-month fix backed by UK wind generation with a £50 exit fee per fuel. Every fixed tariff includes a one-off donation to the Woodland Trust.

Next Smart Saver for shifting general household use

Next Smart Saver is a three-rate time-of-use tariff for households that want to move ordinary consumption into cheaper periods without specialist equipment. The off-peak rate runs from 5am to 4pm and again from 7pm to 2am, a super off-peak rate covers 2am to 5am and the peak rate applies from 4pm to 7pm. It has no exit fees and needs only a smart meter sending half-hourly readings and payment by direct debit.

Next Drive and Next Drive Smart for EV charging

E.ON Next runs two EV tariffs, both fixed for 12 months with no exit fees and both giving cheap electricity between midnight and 6am. Next Drive charges 9p per kWh in that window, which comes to 42 off-peak hours a week, and the driver schedules charging with a timer. It works with any EV and any charger and needs a smart meter with half-hourly data.

Next Drive Smart is cheaper at 8p per kWh over the same window, but instead of a timer it charges the car automatically through the E.ON Next Home app. It needs an EV and charger the app supports, with the myenergi zappi and the Hypervolt among the compatible chargers, and covers one EV per account. Customers are expected to keep using the smart-charging feature, and E.ON reserves the right to move a customer off the tariff if they do not. E.ON built the app with ev.energy. It advertises a saving of about £435 a year on Next Drive Smart, though such figures depend on mileage and the rate in force: ev.energy has quoted an average of £267 a year on an earlier version of the tariff.

Next Pumped for heat pumps and electric heating

Next Pumped is a 12-month fixed tariff for homes heated by a heat pump or an electric boiler, backed by 100% renewable electricity. It has three rates: a super off-peak rate from 10pm to 6am, an off-peak rate covering 6am to 4pm and 7pm to 10pm, then a peak rate from 4pm to 7pm. E.ON advertised a modelled saving of around £188 a year on the current V13 offer at this review. The tariff needs a heat pump or electric boiler, a smart meter with half-hourly data and payment by direct debit.

Next Optimise for solar and battery households

Next Optimise is a dynamic import and export tariff for homes with a solar battery, launched in beta and fixed for 12 months with no exit fees. It takes 3p per kWh off the standard import rate between midnight and 6am, and for the first 1,000 customers it adds 3p per kWh to the export rate between 4pm and 7pm as an early-bird bonus. Those are discounts against the standard rates rather than published fixed prices. A companion app runs the battery automatically, in a mode E.ON describes as artificial-intelligence-driven, or under manual control, and Tesla owners can schedule EV charging through it.

Supported batteries are the full GivEnergy range, Fox ESS (H1-G2, KH and H3 Smart Range), Alpha, Sigenergy fitted with the Sigen Gateway or Sensor, plus the Tesla Powerwall 2 and 3. Next Optimise is still in beta, so its rates, eligibility rules and supported-hardware list can change.

Export tariffs under the SEG

E.ON Next is a mandated SEG licensee, so it has to pay small-scale generators for the electricity they export to the grid. It runs four export tariffs. Next Export Premium v3 pays 17.5p per kWh, fixed for 12 months, and is open only to households whose solar or battery system was installed by E.ON from 10 November 2025 and who also buy their import electricity from E.ON, on systems up to 15kW. Next Export Exclusive v3 pays 13p per kWh, fixed for 12 months, to E.ON electricity customers on systems up to 15kW, excluding those on time-of-use import tariffs. Next Flex Export v1 pays 6p per kWh at a variable rate to any UK household with renewable generation, with no requirement to take electricity from E.ON. Next Business Export v1 pays 8.5p per kWh, fixed for 12 months, for commercial systems up to 5MW.

The export rates were restructured in November 2025. Next Export Exclusive was cut from 16.5p to 13p per kWh, and Next Flex Export was raised from 3p to 6p.

Export eligibility needs an MCS or Flexi-Orb certificate, a grid connection agreed with the local DNO under the G98 or G99 connection rules and a smart meter giving half-hourly export readings. Systems can be up to 5MW for Flex Export and up to 15kW for the Premium and Exclusive tariffs. Payments are made quarterly by bank transfer.

Solar and battery installation through E.ON Next

E.ON Next sells and installs solar panels, starting at £4,995 for a six-panel system or £6,495 for twelve panels, with 0% APR (annual percentage rate) finance available over up to three years. Installations are MCS certified and use tier-one panels from Longi and JA Solar, with a 30-year performance warranty, and the standard battery is 5.3kWh with 4.8kWh usable. Installation teams are a mix of employed and contracted fitters. E.ON Next customers get £200 off panels and batteries.

The advertised starting prices describe E.ON’s named packages at the review date. They are not equipment benchmarks: roof work, array size, battery capacity, electrical alterations and other site scope can change the installed price.

Smart meter requirement and connection times

Every smart tariff needs a smart meter collecting half-hourly data, which E.ON installs free. Connecting an existing customer’s meter to half-hourly readings takes up to 5 days; for a new customer it can take up to 2 weeks, during which the account sits on Next Flex. On Citizens Advice figures, 94.74% of E.ON Next smart meters were working correctly and 98.53% of smart-meter bills were accurate.

Customer-service record

Independent measures of E.ON Next’s service are mixed. Which? gives it a total score of 66% and places it in the lower half of the 17 suppliers it rates, with two stars out of five for customer service, two for value for money and two for switching, but nine out of ten for supporting customers who need extra help. Six per cent of its customers made a complaint in the past year, and Which? flags complaints handling as an area for improvement. Citizens Advice scores it higher, at 3.71 out of 5 and third in its supplier table, with 29.8 complaints per 10,000 customers, an average call wait of 2 minutes 3 seconds and 90.7% of emails answered within two days. Trustpilot shows 4.5 out of 5 from more than 211,000 reviews, with 74% at five stars, though Trustpilot ratings are self-selecting where the Which? and Citizens Advice figures come from representative sampling and reported complaint data.

Prepayment meters and fuel mix

E.ON Next supports prepayment (pay-as-you-go) meters, topped up through Payzone, PayPoint, the Post Office or the app, with emergency credit of £10 for gas and £5 for electricity, the latter changing to £10. Its overall fuel mix is 86% renewable, 12% fossil fuel and 2% nuclear, and the Next Pumped and Next Gust tariffs are backed by 100% renewable electricity.

Applies to

Solar, Battery, EV charging, Heat

Last reviewed

22 Jul 2026