Your Home & Solar

Where do you fit?

Three Irish Homes That Made The Switch

Three families, three very different houses, and what actually changed for each of them. Plus a plain guide to how solar works here, the grant, and whether you need planning.

A Quieter Home
Pádraig & Eileen, Kilkenny A Busy Family Home
Conor & Aoife, Kildare A Big Rural Home
Seán & Niamh, West Clare

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Before you read this

You Have Already Taken The Careful First Step

You filled in a few questions. Most people who do that have been half thinking about solar for a while. This is for the next part. Not "buy solar today", just figuring out where you sit and what would suit your house.

Below are three real Irish homes, with the names changed. The systems, the savings and the payback are anchored to actual installs around the country. Read whichever one looks closest to your own place. By the time your installer comes out to look at the roof, you will already be speaking the same language.

If something raises a question, jot it down. The best site visits are the ones where the homeowner already has the awkward question written on the back of an envelope.

The basics

How Solar Actually Works In An Irish Home

Here is the part nearly everyone gets wrong. Solar panels run on daylight, not heat. They do not need a Spanish summer. They need the bright part of an ordinary Irish day, and we get plenty of those. A roof in Kilkenny still collects around 945 units of sunlight energy for every kilowatt of panel you put up, every year. Kildare is close behind, and even the wetter west of Clare comes in near 888. That is enough for a properly sized system to do real work, cloud or no cloud.

A home system has three main parts, and one optional one.

The Panels

They sit on the roof (or on a frame in the garden) and turn daylight into electricity. South facing is the best. East and west are about 85% as good. A north facing roof can still work in the right setup, but it generates a fair bit less, so it is usually a conversation to have with your installer rather than a default.

The Inverter

Usually fitted somewhere out of the way, like the utility room or a garage. It converts what the panels make into the kind of electricity your house runs on. A hybrid inverter can also manage a battery.

The Smart Meter

Most Irish homes have one now. It records the electricity you send back to the grid so your supplier can pay you for it.

The Battery (Optional)

It banks the power your panels make during the day so you can use it in the evening, when you actually need it.

How a home solar system fits together: panels, inverter, smart meter, battery and grid.

What A Day Of Your Electricity Looks Like

New term there: a night rate is a cheaper price for electricity used late at night. The full list of terms is at the end of the page.

The money, told straight

It Is A 25 Year Decision, Not A 7 Year One

People fix on one number: how long until it pays for itself. For most homes that lands somewhere in the region of six to nine years, depending on the house and how you use it. That is grand, but it is not the real story.

Good panels keep generating for 25 years and well beyond. The years after payback are where the real money is. Every one of those years is electricity you are not buying at whatever the price has climbed to by then.

And it does climb. Over the last while, Irish home electricity prices rose by roughly 9.8% a year since 2018, and closer to 13% a year over the last five. The savings figures behind these stories use a deliberately cautious 5% a year, well below what actually happened. We would rather under promise. If prices keep doing what they have been doing, the real numbers are bigger.

Three Ways Solar Saves You Money

1. Use it yourself. Every unit you make and use is a unit you are not buying at the day rate. This is the biggest saving by far.

2. Sell the surplus. What you do not use is exported to the grid, and your supplier pays you for it under the Clean Export Guarantee.

3. Play the battery. A battery banks free midday solar for the evening, and can also fill up on cheap night rate power to dodge the dear daytime hours.

What It Does Not Cost You

There is 0% VAT on the supply and fit of home solar in Ireland, and has been since 2023. The SEAI grant takes a chunk off the price on top of that. We will not put a system price on this page, because the right number depends entirely on your roof and your habits. Your installer gives you that after a look at the house.

The SEAI grant

What It Is, And What It Is Not

What It Is

A government grant of up to €1,800 towards a home solar system, run by the SEAI. It is paid as €700 for each of the first two kilowatts of panels, then €200 for each kilowatt after that, up to the cap.

Your home needs to have been built and occupied before 2021 to qualify. How the grant is handled in practice varies a little from one installer to the next, so your installer will walk you through it.

What It Is Not

It is not automatic, and it is not a discount on everything. It only applies to the solar work, on an eligible home, fitted by a registered installer.

It is also not the whole story. For most homes the grant is a nice start, but the bills you stop paying for the next 25 years are the bigger prize.

Terms you might not know yet: kWp is the size of the system, SEAI is the state energy authority. Full list at the end.

Will I need planning?

NC6, NC7 And The Garden Rule, In Plain English

This sounds technical. It is not. Here is what the words mean. The exact paperwork side varies a little from one installer to the next, so your installer will walk you through it on your call.

Connecting To The Grid: NC6 Vs NC7

When you put electricity back into the grid, ESB Networks needs to know. For most homes that is a simple notify and connect process called NC6, also known as microgeneration. It covers systems up to 6 kW on a standard single phase home, or up to 11 kW on a three phase home.

Go bigger than that, which a busy all electric home with an EV and a heat pump often does, and you move to the NC7 process, sometimes called mini generation. It is a small bit more paperwork and an approval step. It is routine, well-established, and not a reason to size your system down. Your installer will go through what is involved on your call.

Putting Panels In The Garden

If your roof faces the wrong way or is an awkward shape, panels can go on a frame in the garden instead. There is a planning exemption that covers up to 25 square metres of ground mounted panels. Beyond that you check in with the local authority first. Again, your installer will tell you exactly where you stand before anything is ordered.

The homes

Three Families, Three Answers

Find the one that feels closest to your own house.

Pádraig and Eileen's bungalow in Kilkenny with solar panels on the south-facing roof.

Pádraig & Eileen

A downsized bungalow · Kilkenny

Pádraig and Eileen retired a couple of years ago and moved into a tidy bungalow on the edge of town. On a fixed pension, the thing that worried them was not the upfront cost so much as never knowing what the next bill would bring. They are home most of the day, the kettle and the telly and the immersion all running on a steady routine. That is about as good as it gets for solar.

Their roof faces due south, which is the dream, so a modest system does a lot. Nine panels, a small battery to carry them through the evening, and they are away. Because the system is small and the roof is perfect, it is the quickest of the three to pay for itself.

4 kWp · 9 panelsSouth facing roof5 kWh batteryNo EV or heat pump
"We always knew the bright room at the back was a sun trap. Turns out the roof is too."
~3,000 units
made at home each year
around 85%
off the electricity bill
5 to 7 years
to pay for itself
25+ years
of generation after that

A "unit" is a kWh, the same thing you are billed on. More on that in the plain English list at the end.

Conor and Aoife's modern A3 semi-detached home in Kildare with EV charging on the drive.

Conor & Aoife

A busy family home · Kildare

Conor and Aoife have two small kids, a four bed semi built in 2020, an electric car on the drive and a heat pump keeping the place warm. All of that is brilliant for comfort and terrible for the bill. A modern all electric home like theirs gets through a serious amount of electricity, and theirs was climbing every year.

Their roof has two faces, one east and one west, so they catch the morning sun on one side and the evening sun on the other. Eighteen panels across the two, a 10 kWh battery they can add to later, and a charger so the car fills up on their own daytime solar instead of the grid.

One wrinkle. Their system is big enough that it goes past the simple microgeneration size for a standard home, so it needs the NC7 connection process rather than NC6. That sounds like a hurdle. It is not. It is a small bit more paperwork in the background, and it changed nothing about the day they got their panels.

8.4 kWp · 18 panelsEast and west roof10 kWh battery (add later)EV + heat pumpNC7 connection
"Between the car and the heat pump we were watching the bill go one way only. We wanted to take the wheel."
~4,800 units
made at home each year
around 63%
off a very big bill
7 to 9 years
to pay for itself
25+ years
of value, and a big load to soak up

A bigger bill to start with means more to save. The percentage looks smaller because their usage is so high, but the euros are the largest of the three.

Seán and Niamh's rural home in west Clare with a tree-system ground mount in the garden.

Seán & Niamh

A big rural home · west Clare

Seán and Niamh have a full house. Three teenagers, every device charging, the washing machine never off. Out in the country, the bills are big, and getting on top of them was the thing they had been talking about for a while.

Their roof was the problem. Awkward shape, and the only decent face points the wrong way. But they have a fine big garden. So eight panels went on the roof, and twelve more went on a ground frame out the back. It is what the trade calls a tree system, and the name suits it. The supports drive straight into the ground like roots, holding the whole array firmly in place. No concrete pour, no major groundworks, no scar on the lawn. The house already had three phase power, which gives plenty of headroom, so the whole nine kilowatt system connects on the straightforward microgeneration route.

The 15 kWh battery is the other half of the story. It runs the house through the expensive evening, when grid electricity is at its dearest, so far more of what the panels make actually stays in the house instead of slipping back to the grid.

9 kWp · 8 on roof, 12 in gardenGround frame, no concrete15 kWh batteryThree phaseEvening cover from the battery
"It is the first winter where opening the electricity bill is not the worst job of the month."
~6,600 units
made at home each year
nearly all of it
off the electricity bill
6 to 8 years
to pay for itself
25+ years
of generation, roof and garden

What a battery can and cannot do during a grid outage depends on the inverter, the install, and the rules at the time. If that side of things matters to you, raise it early and your installer will tell you what is possible for your setup.

Batteries and backup

Why A Battery Earns Its Place

Panels make most of their power in the middle of the day. A house uses most of its power in the morning and the evening. A battery bridges that gap. It banks the cheap or free midday power and gives it back to you at teatime, when grid electricity is at its dearest.

Modern batteries are modular, which means you can start with one block and add more later as your needs grow, a new car or a growing family. Some setups can offer a degree of cover during a grid outage as well, but the detail depends on the inverter, the install, and the rules at the time, so your installer is the one to tell you what is and is not on the table for your home.

A modular home battery system installed neatly on a utility room wall.
Solar Terms, In Plain English

Installers use this language all day. You do not have to, but it helps to know what is what before the conversation.

kWp (kilowatt peak)
The size of your solar system. A bigger kWp means more panels and more power on a bright day.
kWh (kilowatt hour), or a "unit"
The amount of electricity you use or make. It is the unit on your bill. A kettle for an hour is roughly one.
Microgeneration
Generating a small amount of your own electricity at home and feeding the extra back to the grid.
NC6
The simple ESB Networks process to connect a normal home system to the grid. Up to 6 kW single phase, or 11 kW three phase.
NC7
The next process up, for systems bigger than the microgeneration size. A bit more paperwork, sorted out behind the scenes.
Inverter
The box that converts the panels' electricity into the type your house uses. A hybrid one also runs a battery.
Single phase / three phase
The type of electricity supply to your house. Three phase is more common in larger or rural homes and allows bigger systems.
CEG (Clean Export Guarantee)
The payment your supplier gives you for the surplus electricity you send back to the grid.
Self consumption
The share of your solar that you use yourself rather than export. The higher it is, the more you save.
Night rate
A cheaper price for electricity used late at night, handy for charging a battery or an EV.
Ground mount
Panels on a frame in the garden instead of the roof, used when the roof will not do the job.
SEAI
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the state body that runs the solar grant.
BER
The Building Energy Rating of your home, from A to G. It does not affect solar, but you will hear it mentioned.

Frequently asked questions

The Things People Actually Ask

Does it really work in Irish weather?
Yes. Panels run on daylight, not heat or direct sun. We get enough bright daylight across the year for a well sized system to make a real dent in your bill. Winter days make less, summer days make plenty, and it averages out.
What if I sell the house?
Solar is a selling point, not a problem. A home with panels and a strong energy rating tends to be more attractive to buyers, and the system stays with the house.
Is there much maintenance?
Very little. There are no moving parts in the panels. Irish rain keeps them clean enough, and a good installer gives you a long warranty and an app to keep an eye on things.
Will it suit my roof?
Most roofs are grand. South is best, east and west are still well worth it, and slate, tile or flat all have a mounting solution. If the roof really will not do it, the garden often can.
How long does the install take?
For most homes it is one to two days on site, with very little disruption. The paperwork and grant happen around that.
Do I have to get a battery?
No, but it changes the maths. Without one, you use your solar as it is made and sell the rest. With one, you keep more of it for the evening, which is when most homes need it most.

What happens next

Your Installer Will Be In Touch

Your local installer will give you a call over the next few days to talk it through and answer whatever you have. No pressure, no hard sell.

In the meantime, have a think about where you sit. Which of the three homes felt closest to yours? That is a great place to start the conversation.