For your home
Solar panels for your home
A system sized around how your household actually uses electricity — with the SEAI grant guided from eligibility check to completion documents.
- €1,800 SEAI grant
- Free site survey
- Battery and EV ready
Accredited & registeredIn business 13 years
SEAI Registered
Safe Electric
Solar Ireland Member- Athlone Chamber Member
- Based in AthloneTrading since 2013
The starting point
Designed for payback, not panel count
People go solar for financial reasons. So the design target is simple: the strongest payback we can design for your house — with the assumptions shown.
That is why we start with your bills rather than your roof. Units you consume in the house are worth what you would otherwise have paid your supplier; units you export earn meaningfully less. Two identical systems on two identical roofs can pay back years apart depending purely on when the household uses power — so we custom-design around your pattern, and show you the payback calculation before you sign anything.
That is why the first thing we ask for is a recent bill and a sense of your daily pattern. A household with someone home during the day, an electric car, or a heat pump has a very different profile to one that is empty from eight until six — and the right system differs accordingly.
If the house is empty during the day
This is the most common situation we see, and it is the clearest case for adding storage. A battery moves your midday generation into the evening, converting exported units into units you do not have to buy. We model it against your actual consumption rather than assuming you need one.
Grant support
The SEAI Solar PV Grant, in plain terms
Worth up to €1,800. You apply to SEAI for the grant offer — we check your eligibility first, give you every detail the application asks for, and handle the installer, grid-notification and completion documents — including the sequencing, which is where valid claims most often get lost.
First 2 kWp
€700 per kWp
Each additional kWp
€200 per kWp
Up to 4 kWp
Maximum grant
€1,800
VAT on domestic solar
0%
Applies to supply and installation
What that works out at
- 2 kWp€1,400
- 3 kWp€1,600
- 4 kWp or larger€1,800
Above 4 kWp the grant does not increase. That does not make a larger system a bad idea — it means the extra capacity should be justified by your consumption rather than by the grant.
To qualify, you need
- Your home is in Ireland and was built and occupied before 1 January 2021
- You have a BER assessment on file — there is no minimum rating required
- The installation is carried out by an SEAI-registered installer
What we install
What a domestic installation includes
Every quote we issue names the actual equipment — manufacturer, model and rating — rather than describing it as "tier 1" or "premium". You should know exactly what is going on your roof before you sign anything.
- Full roof, shading and structural assessment at survey
- System design sized to your consumption pattern
- Glass-glass panels only, with a 30-year warranty — not the cheaper glass-foil panels most quotes assume
- Inverters and batteries warranted for 10 years or more — named by manufacturer and model in your quote
- Installed by our own in-house crews — we do not subcontract your roof to anyone
- Optional battery storage, sized against your evening load
- Optional EV charger integrated with the system rather than bolted on
- All electrical work by a registered electrical contractor
- Grid connection application and registration handled by us
- SEAI grant application guided, with the installer and completion documents submitted by us
- Monitoring set up so you can see production from your phone
- Handover, with the paperwork and warranties collected in one place
This is why we are careful about promises. An Irish system produces plentifully for two thirds of the year and very little in December. A good design works with that curve — anyone quoting you a flat monthly saving is not.
The numbers
Home solar in Ireland — the current figures
The figures every projection should be built on, each one labelled for what it is. Prices and rules come from named sources; generation and export figures are planning ranges we use for sizing, not measured statistics. Reviewed 25 July 2026.
What you pay for electricity
~40c/kWh
Irish households now pay the highest household electricity price in the EU — around 40% above the EU average (Eurostat, H2 2025)
What a Midlands roof generates
850–900 kWh per kWp per year
Planning range — a 4 kWp system typically produces 3,400–3,600 kWh/year. Orientation, pitch and shading move it either way.
What exported units earn
15–20c/kWh
First €400/year of export income is tax-free until the end of 2028
Planning permission
Not needed
For rooftop solar on houses, with no area limit, since October 2022
System price
Quoted from a survey
Not from a price list. Your quote names the exact equipment and exact price, with the€1,800 grant and 0% VAT shown.
Payback
Calculated for your house
Your quote includes the payback calculation with every assumption written down — not a market average
Rooftop solar on houses is exempt from planning permission, with no area limit, since October 2022. Exceptions: 43 Solar Safeguarding Zones near airports and aerodromes (where rooftop arrays over 300m² need permission), protected structures and Architectural Conservation Areas. Export rates change through the year — Standard CEG rates in mid-2026 cluster between about 15c and 20c per kWh. Rates differ by supplier and change through the year — check your supplier’s current rate.
Straight answers
What solar will not do
It will not eliminate your winter bill
Ireland sits at a northern latitude, so generation is strongly seasonal — plentiful in summer, limited in the depths of winter. A good system substantially reduces your annual purchased electricity, weighted towards the brighter two-thirds of the year. A good proposal shows its assumptions and says so plainly.
It will not run your house through a power cut on its own
Backup during an outage requires specific equipment and additional wiring so the system can safely disconnect from the grid. It is not included by default. If outage protection matters to you, say so at the outset and we will specify for it.
It will not run for 30 years untouched
Panels are long-life equipment, but inverters have a shorter service life and should be expected to need replacement at least once. Any projection that shows 25 years of operation with no inverter replacement is not being straight with you.
Good to know
Domestic solar PV installation: common questions
How much is the SEAI solar grant for a 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 attracts €1,400 and a 4 kWp or larger system attracts the full €1,800.
Is my home eligible for the SEAI grant?
Your home needs to be in Ireland and to have been built and occupied before 1 January 2021, you need a BER assessment on file (there is no minimum rating), and the work has to be carried out by an SEAI-registered installer. Lumen Solar is an SEAI-registered Solar PV company, so your installation qualifies.
Do you handle the grant paperwork?
We guide you through it. For the home solar grant, you apply to SEAI yourself — it is a short online application — and we give you every detail it asks for, then handle the installer declarations, the ESB Networks notification and the completion documents that release the payment. Whichever scheme applies, no work should start before your grant approval is issued — the SEAI letter of offer, or TAMS approval from the Department of Agriculture for farm projects. We make sure that sequencing is right.
What does home solar actually cost?
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 €1,800 SEAI grant comes off what you pay. Your quotation names the exact equipment and the exact price, with the payback calculation and its assumptions written down.
Is the grant deducted from the price, or paid to me?
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 there is no ambiguity about what you pay and what comes back.
How do I get paid for electricity I export?
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.
How big a battery does a typical house need?
Enough to cover your evening and overnight consumption, and little more — capacity beyond what you can cycle daily earns nothing. For many Irish homes that lands somewhere between 5 and 15 kWh, but the honest answer comes from your consumption pattern, which is what we model at survey stage before recommending a size.
Does solar affect my BER or my house insurance?
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.
Explore
Other things we do
Most systems we install combine more than one of these. We design them together rather than bolting them on afterwards.
Battery Storage
Keep the electricity you generate instead of exporting it, and hold power in reserve for outages.
Learn more
EV Charging
Charge from your own roof or off-peak night rates, with a charger properly integrated into your system.
Learn more
Solar Maintenance & Support
Inspections, monitoring and repairs that keep an array earning across its warranted life.
Learn more
Get started
Find out what your roof could do
Book a free site survey and we will tell you what we would install, what it would generate, and whether it is worth doing — including if the answer is no.