Home Energy Upgrade Grants

What SEAI pays for insulation, heat pumps, solar panels and batteries, who qualifies, what Budget 2027 changed, and how to apply without losing your grant.

If you heat your home with oil or gas, the grant for switching to a heat pump is now worth up to €14,500 for a house. That is more than double the €6,500 heat pump grant many people still quote. It includes a new €2,000 payment for scrapping your old boiler.

What you can get, and who qualifies

SEAI, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, pays most home energy grants. The amount depends on your home type, from apartment to detached house.

Each grant is a fixed amount, but it can never be more than the cost of the work.

Insulation is usually the first step

Insulation keeps heat in. SEAI pays for attic insulation, cavity wall insulation (filling the gap inside a double wall), internal wall insulation (called dry lining) and external wall insulation (a "wrap" fixed to the outside).

First-time buyers who bought on or after 1 January 2025 get a higher attic grant, up to €2,500 for a detached house. So do people on certain social welfare payments. They also get more for cavity walls: up to €2,300.

If you had a cavity wall grant before, you can now add internal or external insulation. A newer grant pays up to €4,000 for windows and €800 per door, once your attic and walls are well insulated.

Heat pumps carry the biggest grant

A heat pump is an electric heating system. It gathers heat from the outside air, the ground or water and moves it into your home.

For a house, the grant is up to €14,500. That is €10,500 for the heat pump, up to €2,000 for new radiators or pipes where needed, and €2,000 for removing an oil, gas, solid fuel or electric storage heating system.

The assessment checks how much heat your home loses. You can skip it if a valid BER shows a heat loss figure of 2.3 or lower.

“There really has never been a better time to retrofit your home”— William Walsh, SEAI chief executive, 27 January 2026

Solar panels: grants, 0% VAT and payment for spare power

Solar PV panels turn sunlight into electricity. The grant is €700 per kWp (kilowatt peak, the size of the system) for the first 2kWp, then €200 per kWp up to 4kWp. A 4kWp system gets €1,800.

A €600 grant for a home battery of 5kWh opened on 6 October 2026. Houses built and lived in before 2025 can now apply for solar grants. The solar water heating grant is €1,200.

If you send spare electricity to the grid, your supplier pays you under the Clean Export Guarantee. The rate depends on your supplier. The first €400 a year is tax-free, and Budget 2027 raises this to €600.

Extra help if money is tight

The Warmer Homes Scheme gives free upgrades to people who own and live in a home built before 2006 and get a qualifying payment. These include Fuel Allowance, Working Family Payment and One-Parent Family Payment.

The wait is long. SEAI says a contractor will contact you about 15 months after you apply. Under Budget 2027, solar panels and batteries will be offered as standard.

One Stop Shops and the low-cost loan

A One Stop Shop is a company that manages a whole-house upgrade for you. It hires contractors, applies for grants and takes them off your bill upfront. Your home must be built before 2011 and reach at least a B rating afterwards.

To spread the cost, you can take a Home Energy Upgrade Loan of €5,000 or more. Rates start from 2.99%, depending on the lender. The work must improve your BER by at least 20%.

Your BER is the starting point

A BER (Building Energy Rating) is like the energy label on a fridge. It rates your home from A0, the best, to G. A registered assessor carries it out, and it lasts 10 years.

The scale changed on 24 May 2026. Ratings like B1 and B2 no longer appear on new certificates. A house BER costs about €200 to €300, and SEAI pays €50 towards the BER needed after a heat pump grant.

Upgrades are rising, but targets are far off

SEAI schemes supported 58,128 home energy upgrades in 2025, the most yet. That is almost four times the 2021 figure.

In 2025, 26,316 homes reached B2 or better. The total since 2019 is 84,270, against a Climate Action Plan target of 120,000 by the end of 2025. That is about 7 in 10.

The 2030 goals are 500,000 homes at B2 and 400,000 heat pumps in existing homes. Reaching 500,000 would need about 83,000 homes a year from 2026 to 2030.

Budget 2027: what is confirmed

• €2,000 boiler scrappage grant for houses built before 2021, from 6 October 2026
• Extra €2,000 added automatically to heat pump applications already in progress
• €600 home battery grant, from 6 October 2026
• Over €650 million for SEAI home energy upgrades
• Tax-free limit on selling solar power up from €400 to €600 a year

SEAI says full terms for some measures will follow. Check the official pages before you sign a contract.

How to apply

1. Look up your BER on seai.ie, or book a registered BER assessor.
2. Check your eligibility online using your MPRN, the meter number on your electricity bill.
3. Get quotes from SEAI-registered contractors. For a heat pump in an older home, book the technical assessment first.
4. Apply online and wait for your grant offer. Accept it within 30 days.
5. Finish the work within eight months of the offer.
6. Send in your completion forms and any post-works BER. SEAI pays within 4 to 6 weeks.

For more detail on each scheme, see our SEAI grants guide.