Every October, without fail, the phone starts ringing the week after the Budget. Has the grant gone up? Am I eligible now? Will the increase be included in my current application? Should I hold off until next year? This year the questions came thick and fast, partly because there was a fair bit of worry beforehand that grants might be cut, and partly because a whole suite of changes landed within a few days of each other. So this month I want to set out what has actually changed for homeowners, and, just as importantly, how to make sure that grant money is well spent.
First, the big picture. Minister Jack Chambers announced a record €654.5 million in 2027 for SEAI home and community energy upgrade schemes, which he said will pay for more solar panels, better renewable energy and retrofit grants, and a boiler scrappage scheme. The worry beforehand came from the carbon tax, because the revenue raised from it is used to fund the Fuel Allowance and green energy measures such as SEAI grants, and it was expected to be reduced rather than increased. In the end the overall pot went up.
Most of the changes that matter to homeowners actually arrived just before the Budget itself. The Government announced a package of enhanced SEAI grants on September 29, and the measures opened on October 6, 2026. The one I suspect will make the biggest difference in West Cork is the new boiler scrappage grant, given how many homes around here are still heated by oil or a solid fuel range. The heat pump grant is now up to €14,500 for a house and €11,500 for an apartment, including a €2,000 Boiler Scrappage grant, when an oil, gas, electric storage or solid fuel system is removed or you have no central heating. That is a meaningful jump, but it comes with a caveat that I will come back to shortly. It’s worth noting that the boiler scrappage amount will be added to any live heat pump applications automatically, a welcome bonus for some people.
There is also good news for anyone who already has solar panels and watches most of their summer generation disappear into the grid for a modest export payment. SEAI now pays a flat €600 grant towards a home battery of 5kWh or larger, with or without solar panels. A battery lets you store what you generate at midday and use it in the evening when the kettle, cooker and television all come on at once. On top of that, homes built and occupied before 2025 are now eligible for the solar grant, where previously the cut-off was 2021, which opens solar funding up to a lot of newer builds. The solar grant itself stays at €1,800, with no cut announced. It is also worth mentioning the relatively new windows and doors grant again, introduced earlier this year. This continues, and varies by dwelling: €4,000 detached, €3,000 semi, €1,800 mid-terrace, €1,500 apartment, with external doors eligible separately at €800 per door (max two doors), but your home needs to meet a certain level of insulation to be eligible. SEAI now have a handy eligibility checker for this on their website.
For those on lower incomes, the changes are even more significant. The eligibility threshold for the Fuel Allowance will be significantly widened, and anyone in receipt of it is also eligible for the Warmer Homes Scheme, where SEAI covers the cost of attic insulation, wall insulation, draught-proofing, as well as solar panels and batteries. Separately, households on one of seven Department of Social Protection payments can now get €8,400 for solar panels plus €600 for a battery. If you have an elderly parent, relative or neighbour who was just over the line in previous years, it is well worth checking again.
Now the caveat on the individual grants for heat pump including the new boiler scrappage scheme. Your home must have a heat loss indicator, (HLI) of 2.3 or lower. The HLI is a measure of how well insulated your home is and is calculated by dividing the total heat loss by the floor area of the property, based on data from your BER. This is because heat pumps work most efficiently when they deliver water at low temperatures over long periods, which only works if the house holds onto that heat. Put one into a leaky building and it has to work far harder, running at higher flow temperatures, and the running costs could end up higher than the oil boiler it replaced. With an extra €2,000 on the table, I fully expect to see more of this over the coming year, so the old rule of fabric first has never been more relevant: deal with the roof, walls, floor and draughts before you spend money on the heating system.
Finally, a few practical points that catch people out. Never start work before you have your grant offer in writing, because SEAI will not pay retrospectively and I have seen people lose out on thousands this way. You need grant approval before works start, and you must use an SEAI registered contractor. Do not hold off waiting for a better grant that may never come either, as labour and material costs have a habit of rising faster than grant amounts. And if you are doing things in stages, which most people sensibly do, get a plan for the whole house first so that each step builds on the last rather than undoing it. A pre BER assessment with a proper home energy assessment is a great starting point.
As always, if you would like to get in touch about anything discussed here or your own retrofit project, feel free to
reach out to Ruairí at
[email protected].
