Solar panel grant: up to €1,800
Every home gets the same amount, whatever its shape — €1,800 is the cap.
What would it cost on your home?
Your cert may say B2 — that's a B on the new scale.
A heat pump runs on electricity. Pick "Heat pump" if you have one.
A 1970s–80s detached house on oil, rated CEnergy rating C
- Grants you’d get
- €10,300
- It costs about
- €19,000
- You pay
- €5,000 – €8,900
- Saves you each year
- about €760
- Pays for itself in
- about 15 years
The commonest home on file — 24,045 like it. Change an answer above for yours.
Modelled, not observed payments. Middle case €8,930; a quarter of these homes are over €13,884. Repaid in 15.1–16.7 years. Confidence 0.9.
Show what’s included
This is the job list that suits most homes like yours (2 in 10). The money above is the middle of every route we priced, so it will not add up to this list exactly.
Solar panels — on the roof, one day, no disruption. Cuts the electricity bill, and pairs well with a heat pump.
2.4 kWp ≈ 2,040 kWh/yr. Cost €9,400 · grant up to €1,800 · you pay €7,600.
Costs about €10,700 · grant €1,800 · you pay €8,900
The paperwork — assessment first, grant approval, then the work, then a new energy cert, then the grant is paid. A One-Stop-Shop does all of it and takes the grant off the bill.
Order is mandatory — work started before approval is not eligible. Energy cert €276, assessment grant €350 through a One-Stop-Shop. Typically 3–6 months end to end (estimate).
Costs about €280 · grant €350 · the grant covers it
Do you qualify?
- Your home was built and lived in before 2021 — a later date than the other grants.
- The roof gets sun for a good part of the day.
- You have not already claimed this grant for the same home.
Roughly 1 in 10 1970s–80s detached homes already pass the first check.
What it costs for homes like yours
Worked out from the energy ratings of 24,045 homes like these in SEAI’s records. “You pay’ is what is left after the grants, for the middle half of them.
| Home | Grant | You pay | Saves a year | Pays back in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1970s–80s detached house on oil, rated CEnergy rating C | €10,300 | €5,000 – €8,900 | €760 | 15 years |
| A pre-1970 detached house on oil, rated F/GEnergy rating F/G | €23,000 | €13,300 – €18,100 | €4,150 | 5 years |
| A pre-1970 terrace house on gas, rated EEnergy rating E | €17,700 | €11,800 – €14,400 | €1,790 | 8 years |
| A pre-1970 detached house on oil, rated CEnergy rating C | €8,300 | €4,500 – €8,500 | €770 | 11 years |
detached|1970-1989|C|oil: net p50 €8,930, p75 €13,884, repaid 15.1–16.7 yrs, confidence 0.9 · detached|pre1970|FG|oil: net p50 €18,106, p75 €25,076, repaid 4.5–6.4 yrs, confidence 0.9 · terrace|pre1970|E|gas: net p50 €14,353, p75 €18,117, repaid 8.1–10.2 yrs, confidence 0.9 · detached|pre1970|C|oil: net p50 €8,500, p75 €9,449, repaid 11.1–16.5 yrs, confidence 0.9.
More home types
| A 1990s detached house on oil, rated C | €12,500 | €4,000 – €4,500 | €820 | 7 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1990s semi-detached on gas, rated C | €12,500 | €4,300 | €540 | 11 years |
| A 1990s semi-detached on oil, rated C | €12,500 | €4,300 | €470 | 11 years |
| A 1990s apartment on electric heating, rated C | €5,500 | €4,600 | €1,140 | 4 years |
Why oil homes pay back fastest
The dearer your heat is now, the more you save by changing it. A unit of heat from a heat pump costs about a third of what the same heat costs on electric heating, and well under what it costs on oil or bottled gas.
What’s entailed
Solar panels — on the roof, one day, no disruption. Cuts the electricity bill, and pairs well with a heat pump.
2.4 kWp ≈ 2,040 kWh/yr. Cost €9,400 · grant up to €1,800 · you pay €7,600.
Costs about €9,400 · grant €1,800 · you pay €7,600
The grant in detail, by house type
| Apartment | €1,800 |
|---|---|
| Terrace | €1,800 |
| Semi-detached or end of terrace | €1,800 |
| Detached | €1,800 |
- €700 for each of the first two panels' worth, then €200 each up to the €1,800 cap.
- No home energy assessment is needed for solar on its own.
- What you do not use, you can sell back to your supplier.
Amounts verified 2026-09-08.
How we worked this out
We group every home in SEAI’s energy rating records by kind, age, rating and heating, then work out the cheapest set of jobs that would bring each one up to a B. Prices for those jobs are the middle price SEAI recorded for that work last year; grants come from SEAI’s published amounts; fuel prices come from SEAI’s comparison table.
So these are worked-out figures for homes like yours, not a record of what anyone was charged. Your own quote will land somewhere in the range, and the wider the range, the less certain we are.
2025 medians (n=47,067 upgrades; OSS n=1,406). 2026-07-01. BER file 2026-09-08, 1,077,114 rows. DEAP standard occupancy.
Common questions
- How much is the solar panel grant in 2026?
- Up to €1,800. It is €700 for each of the first two units of capacity, then €200 for each one after that.
- What does a typical set of panels cost?
- The middle price for the work in 2025 was €9,400 for a semi-detached house, so you pay about €7,600 after the grant.
- Do panels work in Irish weather?
- Yes. A typical set makes about 2,040 units of electricity a year here — roughly half a household's use.
Related
Homes at each rating
- Detached 1981–1990: C to B
- Detached 1971–1980: C to B
- Detached before 1919: G to B
- Detached 1919–1945: G to B
- Semi-detached 1971–1980: E to B
- Detached 1946–1960: G to B
Applying, and who gets what
- One-Stop-Shop
- One job at a time
- Free upgrades scheme
- How to apply
- How long the wait is
- What you need first
- Checking your application
- If you are retired
Who does this work
Registered installers by county