Export limits, DNSP approval and flexible exports (CSIP) explained

Who actually approves your system

Before a system connects, your Distribution Network Service Provider - the company that owns the poles and wires, not your electricity retailer - must approve the connection. In Sydney that's typically Ausgrid or Endeavour Energy depending on where you live. The approval sets your export limit: how much power you may push back into the grid.

This is why a properly run project starts with the grid application, and why 'installed this week' offers should make you ask who's handled the approval.

Fixed limits today

The common arrangement is a fixed export cap - frequently around 5 kW per phase in NSW, though it varies by network and location. Systems are designed and inverters configured to respect it. A fixed cap doesn't cap your system size, only your exports: you can generate more than you export, provided the design manages the difference through self-consumption or storage.

This is one reason batteries and load-shifting have grown - they convert would-be-curtailed exports into used energy.

Flexible exports and CSIP

The emerging model replaces fixed caps with dynamic limits: the network signals your system how much it may export right now, raising the ceiling when the local grid has room and lowering it when congested. The communication standard behind this in Australia is CSIP-AUS, and networks are progressively rolling out these 'flexible export' connections.

The practical implication for buyers: dynamic control needs a system that can listen and respond - a compliant inverter and, importantly, metering that tells the system what the site is doing. It's one of the reasons we treat consumption metering as required equipment in battery systems and in any connection under dynamic control, and our monitoring page covers that in detail.

What to do with this

Nothing scary - just design order. Supply type and network rules first, system size second. We check your network, phase and likely export arrangement during the site check so the design you approve is the design that gets connected.