2025 promises to be a huge year for solar power in Ireland with the ever growing number of homes and businesses installing rooftop solar, and the growing number of solar farms in the country under construction or in the pipeline.

Lets look at some of things which we may come to see in the coming year for the solar energy sector.

The cost of solar plummeted dramatically in 2023/24 as part of a decade long transition in the market. The cost of solar panels plunged as production levels ramped up dramatically, with many Chinese companies coming to dominate the market in Europe.

The cost of getting a domestic solar PV system in Ireland has fallen to €7,000 – €10,000, with a payback period of just 6 or 7 years. That is a dramatic improvement from just a few years ago when you might expect it to take 10 years to pay for your solar panels.

The growing number of options to choose from among solar panel manufacturers, increasing numbers of installers, and reduce manufacturing costs of high quality components have all combined to drive prices to record lows.

The question is whether prices will continue to fall, or of the cost of solar modules has found its bottom in Ireland and Europe.

Government grants are the biggest source of support for the rollout of solar energy in homes and businesses. The domestic solar PV grant is being reduced by the government over time, with the explanation that falling costs will make it unnecessary.

As of January 1, 2025 the maximum grant available for domestic solar power has been cut from €2,100 to €1,800. This affects grant levels across the board. The scheme now pays €700 per kWp of solar capacity up to 2kWp, and €200 per kWp after up to a maximum of 4kWp.

There has been no indication of any plans to reduce other commercial solar PV grants schemes.

The SEAI’s Non-Domestic Microgen Grant continues to offer up to €162,600 for solar PV systems up to 1,000kWp in size, while farmers can avail of up to €90,000 for solar panels through the TAMS 3 programme.

The sixth tranche of the TAMS 3 programme for farm modernisation is due to open for applications on January 23.

Whether those programmes will be effect by changing economic conditions, or continued pressure to decarbonise the energy grid, will be a matter of policy for the new government which is unlikely to be addressed any time soon.

One of the most lucrative benefits for domestic solar power in recent years has been the introduction of feed-in-tariffs which allow homeowners to get paid for any unused electricity generated by the solar panels which is sent back to the grid.

These feed-in-tariffs under the Microgeneration Support Scheme are set by the electricity provider, and may have been slashed in recent months as electricity prices have come down.

SSE Airtricity cut its feed-in-tariff to 19.5c last August, Electric Ireland followed that by cutting its rates from 21c to 19.5c per kWh in November, and Energia has become the latest to slash its rates from 24c to 20c just this month. 

Pinergy remains the outlier, paying 25c per kWh of electricity sold by domestic solar producers. If electricity prices continue to fall this year, and solar panels become more common on homes in Ireland, it is likely that we will see furthe reductions in the price offered for their spare power.

On the flip side of this the Small Scale Renewable Energy Support Scheme is due to open for applications on January 27, allowing Communities and SMEs to get paid for surplus power for solar PV systems larger than 50kW and up to 6MW in scale.

This will allow communities to receive €140 or €150 per MWh of electricity they supply to the grid depending on the size of the system, and SMEs to receive €120 or €130 per MWh. 

More and more households are choosing to install solar batteries alongside their solar panels, increasing the amount of free electricity they use at home.

Solar batteries have also changed from clunky, ugly thinngs which look like they belong under the hood of a car and required multiple other pieces of tech to connect and control.

Batteries for sale now are modern, sleek appliances which put a priority on aesthetics, ease of control through mobile applications, and simplicity of scale by allowing multiple batteries to be connected in sequence.

The price of installing a single 5kW solar battery can still add up to €2,500 onto the price of a solar PV system. However, just like solar panels themselves, as more and more companies begin churning out high quality modules, that price will also fall.

This will have far reaching consequences for electricity consumption by allowing households and businesses to maximise their self-consumption of solar energy. 

This will deliver the best value for money, and reduce the load on the grid as it deals with the issues arising from the transition from fossil fuels to less predictable renewable energy sources.

Ireland has been slow to adopt solar power as a utility scale source of renewable energy with wind still far in the lead. This has begun to change with total solar capacity in Ireland doubling last year.

The Irish Solar Energy Association’s 2024 Scale of Solar Report showed that solar capacity grew by 42.6% by mid 2024, and expanded further to a projected 1,600MW of capacity by the end of the year.

2025 will be another big year for solar energy in Ireland, with many more utility scale solar farms either under construction or due to be connected to the grid this year.

The growth of high volume utility scale projects should also have a knock on effect of reducing prices of solar panels for all consumers.

Solar PV technology is continuing to improve as companies seek to improve the efficiency of solar panels to deliver greater power output with the same or smaller space.

2024 saw n-type solar cells surpass older p-type cells in market share, and this growth is expected to continue with n-type solar panels reaching 80% market dominance in 2025 according to the ITRPV report.

This will see the solar panels with the greatest efficiency such as TopCON and HJT modules become more affordable and accessible.

Multi-junction Perovskite-Silicon tandem solar panels are also coming closer to the market, with the first commercial applications of tandem solar panels in utility projects occurring in late 2024.

Continuing research and the development of manufacturing facilities brings us closer to seeing the first generation of Perovskite solar panels for domestic use. Their multi-junction design will allow them to offer greater efficiency with the same area, a great concern where space is a premium.