Solar PPA

We do. Under a Power Purchase Agreement the panels on your roof belong to us, and the electricity they produce is sold to you at a rate agreed in the contract. There is no capital outlay for you to budget for and no asset on your balance sheet.

We do, for the life of the agreement: monitoring, servicing, repairs and component replacement. You pay for the electricity the system actually generates and you use, so if it underperforms that is our problem, not yours. That is the main difference from owning the system yourself.

Not always. For most organisations that can fund the capital, owning the system is the stronger position over its full life. You keep all of the electricity, you are eligible for grant support and capital allowances, there is no ongoing payment once it is paid for, and any future rise in electricity prices works in your favour. A PPA makes sense where the capital is tied up elsewhere, but the total cost over the full life is generally higher than owning.

Both are contract terms, and both should be settled in writing before you sign. So should the term length, how the unit rate is set and whether it escalates, who is responsible if the roof needs work, and what happens to the equipment if the provider ceases trading. Those are questions worth putting to any PPA provider, us included. We will not quote generic terms on a web page. We model your site and put the actual numbers in front of you.

It depends which scheme you are under. For TAMS, your farm advisor lodges the application and we supply the system specification, quotes and documentation it needs. For the SEAI Non-Domestic Microgen Scheme, the application is made before work starts and we provide the installer detail and the completion documents that release the payment. Either way, no work should start before approval is issued. That means TAMS approval from the Department of Agriculture, or the SEAI letter of offer, and we make sure that order is kept.

The SEAI Non-Domestic Microgen Scheme supports non-domestic solar installations up to 1000 kWp, with a maximum grant of €162,600. Support is tiered by system size, so the rate per kWp reduces as the system gets larger. Businesses, farms, schools, public sector bodies, community groups and non-profits can all apply.

Not both for yourself. The grant follows whoever owns the system, so you cannot claim it on an array someone else has funded. Under a Power Purchase Agreement the provider owns the system and claims the SEAI Non-Domestic Microgen Scheme, worth up to €162,600, and that value should show up in the unit rate you are quoted. It is one reason buying outright is usually the stronger option where the capital is available: you keep the grant, the system itself and all of the electricity. Ask any PPA provider, ourselves included, to show you how the grant is carried through into the rate.

Usually not. Rooftop solar on houses is exempt from planning permission, with no area limit, since October 2022 — and that applies anywhere in the country, including inside the 43 Solar Safeguarding Zones around airports and aerodromes, which cap other kinds of building but not houses. The exceptions for a house are protected structures and Architectural Conservation Areas. Rooftop solar on industrial, commercial and agricultural buildings is exempt from planning permission with no area cap outside the 43 Solar Safeguarding Zones near airports and aerodromes. Inside a zone, the exemption for these buildings stops at 300m² of panels — counting anything already installed — so a larger array needs permission. Ground-mounted arrays and protected structures have separate rules, and we confirm the position for every site as part of our survey.