Pick your plan on the import unit rate and the standing charge first, and treat the export rate as a tie-breaker. A typical Irish home with 4 kWp of solar still buys about 2,200 kWh a year from the grid and sells back about 1,400 kWh. That imbalance means a cent knocked off your import rate is worth roughly one and a half times a cent added to your export rate, and the gap between the dearest and cheapest published import rates is far wider than the gap between the best and worst export rates. Solar owners who switch chasing a headline export figure regularly end up paying more.
- Typical 4 kWp home: imports ~2,200 kWh, exports ~1,400 kWh a year
- 1c/kWh off your import rate = about €22 a year
- 1c/kWh onto your export rate = about €14 a year
- €1 off the standing charge = €1 a year, whatever you use
- Published import rates run from 29.86c to 42.65c inc VAT; standing charges from €219 to €397 a year
- Pinergy's market-leading export rate drops from 25c to 18.5c ex VAT on 1 August 2026
Your Bill Has Three Levers, Not One
Every electricity plan in Ireland charges you in three ways, and a solar home is affected by all three differently.
The standing charge is a fixed annual fee for being connected. You pay it whether you use a lot of electricity or almost none. Solar does nothing to reduce it, which is exactly why it matters more to a solar home than to anyone else: as your imported units fall, the fixed charge becomes a bigger slice of what you actually pay.
The import unit rate is what you pay per kWh you draw from the grid. Solar cuts the number of units, not the price of them.
The export rate, paid under the Clean Export Guarantee, is what your supplier credits you per kWh you send back. This is the only one of the three that solar owners tend to shop on, and it is the smallest of the three by some distance.
What Each Lever Is Actually Worth
Start with the volumes, because everything follows from them. The average Irish household uses about 4,200 kWh of electricity a year, a reference figure maintained by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. A 4 kWp system, the most common size in Ireland and the size the SEAI grant caps out at, generates roughly 3,200–3,600 kWh a year at Irish irradiance of 800–900 kWh per kWp.
You do not get to use all of that. Solar generates at midday and households mostly use electricity in the evening, so a home without a battery typically exports around 1,400 kWh of it. That leaves roughly 2,000 kWh self-consumed, and about 2,200 kWh still bought from the grid.
| Lever | Annual volume | Value of a 1c/kWh move |
|---|---|---|
| Import unit rate | ~2,200 kWh bought | €22.00 |
| Export rate (CEG) | ~1,400 kWh sold | €14.00 |
| Standing charge | Fixed | €1 per €1, always |
So a cent on the import side is worth about 1.6 times a cent on the export side. That alone would be a reason to weight imports more heavily. The bigger reason is that suppliers compete far harder on import price than on export price.
The spread available on each lever
Rates checked against supplier pricing pages on 23 July 2026, all figures including VAT unless stated.
| Lever | Cheapest published | Dearest published | Spread | Worth per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Import unit rate | 29.86c (Energia 24hr with 30% discount) | 42.65c (Energia standard 24hr) | 12.79c | €281 |
| Standing charge (urban) | €219.22 (Yuno 24hr) | €397.39 (Yuno time-of-use) | €178.17 | €178 |
| Export rate | 15.89c | 25c (Pinergy, until 1 Aug) | 9.11c | €128 |
The import rate and the standing charge together account for about €460 a year of possible difference. The export rate accounts for about €128. Choosing your supplier on the export rate means optimising the smallest of the three.
A Worked Example Where the Worst Export Rate Wins
This is the part that catches people out. Take our typical home, importing 2,200 kWh and exporting 1,400 kWh, on an urban meter. Compare two real published plans.
| Yuno Energy 24hr urban | Energia standard 24hr urban | |
|---|---|---|
| Import rate (inc VAT) | 34.85c | 42.65c |
| Export rate | 15.89c (joint lowest in Ireland) | 18.5c |
| Standing charge | €219.22 | €265.01 |
| Cost of 2,200 kWh imported | €766.70 | €938.30 |
| Plus standing charge and PSO levy | €238.32 | €284.11 |
| Gross annual cost | €1,005.02 | €1,222.41 |
| Less export credit on 1,400 kWh | −€222.46 | −€259.00 |
| Net annual cost | €782.56 | €963.41 |
The supplier paying the joint lowest export rate in the country leaves this household €180.85 a year better off. Its export credit is €36.54 smaller, but it costs €217.39 less to buy electricity from in the first place. The import side outweighed the export side by roughly six to one.
The PSO levy of €19.10 has been applied to both sides for a like-for-like comparison. Energia's published standard rate is used here rather than its discounted rate, because the standard rate is what you roll onto when an introductory discount expires.
How to Choose Your Plan in Five Steps
- Find your real import figure. Take it from a recent bill, not the national average. If you have a smart meter you can download your actual half-hourly data from ESB Networks and use that. A solar home's import figure is the number that drives everything else.
- Estimate your export. A 4 kWp system with no battery exports somewhere around 1,200–1,600 kWh a year. With a battery, expect that to fall sharply, because you are storing the surplus instead of selling it.
- Price the whole plan. Multiply your import kWh by the import rate, add the standing charge and PSO levy, then subtract your export kWh multiplied by the export rate. Do this for each plan you are considering. It takes five minutes and it is the only comparison that means anything.
- Check the standing charge separately. Urban and rural standing charges differ, sometimes by more than €70 a year, and time-of-use plans often carry a higher one. A cheap unit rate attached to a €397 standing charge is not cheap.
- Only then look at the export rate. If two plans are within about €30 a year of each other on the import side, the export rate is a fair tie-breaker. If they are not, it usually is not.
When the Export Rate Does Deserve More Weight
The advice above assumes a fairly ordinary household. Three situations change the balance.
A large system with low daytime use. If you have fitted well above 4 kWp and the house is empty during the day, your export volume can approach or exceed your import volume. Once those two numbers converge, a cent of export is worth nearly as much as a cent of import, and the export rate becomes a genuine factor.
A restricted premium rate. SSE Airtricity's Activ8 tariff pays a materially higher rate, but only if the system was installed through one of its approved partner installers. It is not something you can switch onto after the fact, so it belongs in the conversation when you are choosing an installer, not when you are choosing a supplier. Our Clean Export Guarantee rates comparison sets out who pays what and on what conditions.
Very low import. A well-insulated home with a battery and a modest evening load might buy only 800–1,000 kWh a year. At that point the standing charge is the dominant cost and the import rate barely registers, so shop on the fixed charge first and the export rate second.
Smart, Night and Dynamic Tariffs With Solar
Time-of-use plans complicate the picture in a way that usually favours solar homes with a battery and works against those without one.
A day/night or smart plan gives you a cheap overnight window and a dearer day rate. The problem is that solar already covers much of your daytime demand, so the expensive day units you are avoiding are the ones you were not going to buy anyway, while your evening peak sits squarely in the dear window. Without storage, a flat 24-hour rate often beats a time-of-use plan for a solar household.
Add a battery and it inverts. You charge overnight at the cheap rate, run the evening off the battery, and the day rate stops mattering. Our guides on night rate electricity and dynamic tariffs for solar homes go through the windows and the numbers in detail, and battery storage in Ireland covers whether the battery itself pays for itself.
One caution on time-of-use plans: they frequently carry a higher standing charge. Yuno's time-of-use urban standing charge is €397.39 against €219.22 on its flat 24-hour plan, a difference of €178 a year that has to be earned back in cheap night units before you see a cent of benefit.
Tax on Your Export Income
Profits of up to €400 a year from domestic microgeneration are exempt from Income Tax, USC and PRSI under Section 216D of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. Finance Act 2025 extended the scheme by three years, so the exemption now runs through the 2028 year of assessment.
You will still find guides online stating that the relief expired at the end of 2025. That was the position before the extension and it is out of date. Revenue's own tax and duty manual on the exemption confirms the 2024 to 2028 window.
In practice the exemption covers almost everyone. At 18.5c, €400 buys you 2,162 kWh of exports, well above what a typical 4 kWp system sends back. Our guide to tax on solar export income covers what happens if you exceed it.
Before You Switch
Switching supplier does not affect your solar installation, your grant or your ESB Networks connection. What it can affect is your export payments, so a few practical points.
- Your NC6 form and grid connection stay with ESB Networks, not your supplier, so they carry over. Our NC6 form guide explains the paperwork if it was never completed.
- You need to tell your new supplier that you are a microgenerator. It is not automatic, and export payments do not backdate themselves indefinitely.
- A smart meter is needed for payment on metered exports. Without one you fall back to a deemed export calculation, which assumes a fixed export share rather than measuring what you actually sent back.
- Check your current contract for any exit or termination charge before you move. These vary by supplier and by whether you are on a fixed-term deal.
- Export credits usually arrive as a credit on your bill rather than a cash payment, and the frequency varies from monthly to twice yearly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which electricity supplier is best for solar panel owners in Ireland?
There is no single best supplier, because it depends on how much you import. For most solar homes the cheapest overall plan is the one with the lowest combination of import unit rate and standing charge, not the one with the highest export rate. A typical 4 kWp home imports about 2,200 kWh and exports about 1,400 kWh a year, so the import side of the bill is worth roughly 1.6 times as much per cent as the export side.
Should I switch supplier to get a better export rate?
Only after you have checked what the switch does to your import rate and standing charge. Price the whole plan: import kWh times the import rate, plus standing charge and PSO levy, minus export kWh times the export rate. In a worked comparison of two real published plans, the supplier paying the joint lowest export rate in Ireland still came out €180.85 a year cheaper because its import rate was 7.8c lower.
What is happening to Pinergy's export rate?
Pinergy's Clean Export Guarantee rate falls from 25c per kWh ex VAT to 18.5c per kWh ex VAT on 1 August 2026, confirmed on Pinergy's own microgeneration page. Pinergy is also raising its EV night-time rate between 2am and 5am from 5.99c to 10.89c per kWh on the same date.
How much is 1c on the export rate actually worth?
About €14 a year for a typical 4 kWp home exporting 1,400 kWh. By comparison, 1c off the import rate is worth about €22 a year on 2,200 kWh imported, and €1 off the standing charge is worth exactly €1 regardless of usage.
Is a smart or night-rate tariff better if I have solar?
Only if you have a battery. Without storage, solar already covers much of your daytime demand, so a cheap night rate paired with a dearer day rate and often a higher standing charge tends to leave you worse off than a flat 24-hour plan. With a battery you can charge overnight and run the evening off stored power, which is when time-of-use plans start to pay.
Do I pay tax on money I earn from exporting solar electricity?
Not on the first €400 a year. Section 216D of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 exempts up to €400 of microgeneration profits from Income Tax, USC and PRSI, and Finance Act 2025 extended this to the 2028 year of assessment. At an 18.5c export rate, €400 covers 2,162 kWh of exports, which is more than most 4 kWp systems send back in a year.
Does switching supplier affect my SEAI grant or my grid connection?
No. The SEAI grant is paid on the installation and is unaffected by who supplies your electricity. Your grid connection and NC6 registration sit with ESB Networks, not your supplier, so they carry across a switch. You do need to tell the new supplier that you are a microgenerator, as export payments are not set up automatically.
Why does the standing charge matter more when you have solar?
Because solar reduces the units you buy but does nothing to the fixed charge. As your imported kWh fall, the standing charge becomes a larger proportion of what you pay, so a plan with a high fixed charge erodes more of your solar savings. Published urban standing charges currently range from about €219 to €397 a year, a difference of €178 before you have used a single unit.
Import rates, standing charges and export rates checked against supplier pricing pages on 23 July 2026. Rates change with notice and no comparison table is more current than the supplier's own page, so confirm before you switch. Consumption and generation assumptions: 4,200 kWh average annual household use (CRU reference figure), 4 kWp system generating 3,200–3,600 kWh a year at Irish irradiance of 800–900 kWh per kWp, and roughly half of that generation self-consumed, giving about 1,400 kWh exported and 2,200 kWh imported. Self-consumption varies a lot between households, so use your own bill figures where you can — the sensitivity check above shows the conclusion holds at a 35% self-consumption rate too. Tax treatment per Revenue's tax and duty manual on Section 216D, checked 23 July 2026.