Home solar panels are a major expense for a homeowner, costing most people in the region of €10,000. This is a long term investment that you expect to keep paying dividends for the next three decades at least.

So, if you find yourself moving home just a few years after getting solar panels installed, you might ask yourself if you can take them with you when you move home.

The answer is that you can, but it is certainly not worth the effort to do so, and it would cost a lot of money to do so.

Yes, you certainly can remove solar panels from a property. It’s perfectly legal and technically feasible to take them off one roof and install them on another.

However, there would be a lot of work involved in doing so. First off, you will need to get a qualified electrical and roofing contractor. And they will have a lot of work to do.

Getting solar panels off your roof will involve disconnecting them from the wiring that ties them into your home’s electrical system. Any wiring left over that is now exposed on the roof will also have to be dealt with to avoid long term problems.

Accessing the panels and taking them off the roof will involve the contractor setting up scaffolding in order to do so safely.

Once the solar panels have been removed, you will still be left with the mounting system on the roof. These are a series of rails that solar panels attach to, and are themselves fixed to the roof. Solar panel mounting systems for a pitched roof have fastenings that go under your tiles or slates and affix directly to the roof beams.

A qualified roofer will be needed to remove them without the risk of damaging your roof. You’ll want these rails removed since, without the solar panels they will be an unsightly feature on the roof for any prospective buyer.

If you plan to take your solar panels to a new home, you will also need to take the solar inverter at a minimum. Any extras you have added to the system, such as a solar battery or power diverter, will also need to be removed. If you are not experienced with electrical work, this will also need to be done by a qualified professional when disconnecting it from your home’s electrical system.

While it is possible for someone who is experienced with electrical and roofing work to do this themselves, it would be a big job with a lot of difficulties.

There is also the added expense that comes with the fact that once you have solar panels off your old roof, you will also need to pay to have them installed on the new one. This will again be a full day job for the installer, including wiring and connecting the entire system. Even though you already own the equipment, you will likely still be paying several thousand euro.

So to sum it up, you’ll pay thousands to get your solar panels off the roof, and thousands more to get them put back onto the new roof. The combined cost is likely to be even higher than the price of the original installation.

This is due to the fact that the installation work makes up a greater share of the cost than the equipment in the current market. It would take years of savings on electricity to pay back the cost of this work. Depending on how soon after your original purchase you are moving, they might still be recouping the cost of the first installation job.

It would likely be less expensive to just buy new solar panels for your new home. This would have the added benefit of giving you brand new equipment that is less worn down. New solar panels are also likely to be more efficient than those you bought before, as the technology has been rapidly improving in recent years.

Installing solar panels is the type of home improvement that can significantly increase the value of a property. This will allow you to at the very least recoup some of the cost of having them installed in the first place. Depending on your home, the extra value added by solar panels may even exceed that cost.

The exact value that solar panels can add to a home varies. Some studies have shown a 2% increase in property value, while others suggest that they could add 6-7% to the price of a home.

Let’s take a 4% increase in property prices from installing solar panels as a middle point. This is also a figure that is frequently used when discussing this. Using median property prices in 2024 according to the CSO, we see that solar panels could anywhere from €7,600 to €26,400 to the value of a home. The exact increase will depend on where you live.

This is a clear incentive to leave solar panels in place, as they have far more value as a selling point for your home than any potential gain from bringing them to a new house.

While it is legal and doable to take solar panels with you when you are moving home, the cost of doing so would erase any value they could deliver for your new home. On the other hand, solar panels can be a great selling point that will add value to the house you are trying to sell.