Solar panels for your home

The SEAI Solar PV Grant is worth up to €1,800. It is paid at €700 per kWp for the first 2 kWp installed, then €200 for each additional kWp up to 4 kWp. So a 2 kWp system gets €1,400 and a 4 kWp or larger system gets the full €1,800. Since October 2026 there is also a €600 grant for a battery of 5 kWh or more, so panels and a battery together can get €2,400. If you get Fuel Allowance or certain other social welfare payments, the grant can be up to €9,000.

You need to own the home (landlords can apply too), and it has to have been built and occupied before 2025. That cut-off moved from 2021 on 6 October 2026, so a lot of newer houses now qualify. It cannot have had a solar PV grant before. A BER assessment is done after the installation, with no minimum rating, and the work has to be done by an SEAI-registered company, which we are. One thing to watch: you have 8 months from the grant offer to finish, so apply when you are ready to go ahead.

We guide you through it. You apply to SEAI yourself. It is a short online application, and we give you every detail it asks for. We then handle the installer declarations, the ESB Networks notification and the completion documents that release the payment. No work should start before your grant approval is issued, and we make sure it doesn’t.

It depends on the roof and the equipment, which is why we quote from a survey rather than a price list. Domestic solar is zero-rated for VAT, and the SEAI grant (€1,800 for panels, €600 more for a battery) comes back to you after the job. Your quotation names the exact equipment and the exact price, with the payback calculation and its assumptions written down.

For the domestic SEAI grant, the money is normally paid to you by SEAI after the installation is completed and the post-works documentation, including the BER assessment, has been submitted. Your quotation from us shows the full price and the grant separately, so it is clear what you pay and what comes back.

Export payments come from your electricity supplier under the Clean Export Guarantee, not from the government. When we commission your system we notify ESB Networks (the NC6 or NC7 form), which is what registers you as a microgenerator; your supplier then applies its export rate to your account. With a smart meter your actual export is measured; rates vary by supplier, so it is worth comparing. The first €400 a year of export income is tax-free until the end of 2028. Budget 2027 announced an increase to €600 a year, which takes effect once it is legislated.

Enough to cover your evening and overnight use, and not much more. There’s no point paying for capacity you never use. For a lot of Irish homes that lands between 5 and 15 kWh, but the real answer comes from your own usage, which we look at during the survey. The SEAI battery grant (€600) needs a battery of at least 5 kWh.

Solar PV normally improves a BER, because it reduces the calculated primary energy use of the home, and a post-works BER assessment is part of the SEAI grant process anyway. On insurance, tell your insurer you have added solar, as with any alteration to the building. Cover for panels is routine.