PSO Levy Ireland 2026: What It Is, Why It's Back, and Does Solar Cut It?

The PSO levy is a fixed charge added to every electricity bill in Ireland, set once a year by the energy regulator to help pay for renewable and security-of-supply generation. For the 2025/26 PSO year it costs a typical home €1.46 a month, after the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) cut it from €2.01 and applied the lower figure from 1 December 2025. That is a big change from the two years before, when the levy was zero or even paid money back to households. Here is what it actually is, why it swings around so much, and the question we get asked most on a solar site: if I put panels on the roof, does my PSO levy go down?

What Is the PSO Levy?

PSO stands for Public Service Obligation. The levy is a charge collected from every electricity customer in the country to fund generation schemes set by government policy, mainly renewable energy under the older REFIT scheme and the newer Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS), along with a security-of-supply element. The CRU calculates the amount each year and suppliers collect it on their bills. It is not a supplier profit line and it is not something you can shop around to avoid: every supplier charges the same regulated amount.

Two features matter for households. First, the PSO year does not follow the calendar: it runs from 1 October to 30 September. Second, and this is the part that trips people up, the levy is a fixed charge per customer, not a rate per unit of electricity. You pay the same monthly amount whether you use a lot of power or a little. That single fact drives most of what follows, including the solar question.

What the PSO Levy Costs in 2025/26

For the 2025/26 PSO year the CRU first set a home levy of €2.01 a month in its July 2025 decision. In October 2025 it revised the calculation downward after spotting two data corrections in the underlying figures, and the lower amount was applied to bills from 1 December 2025 to 30 September 2026. The revised monthly charges are:

Revised amounts represent a 27% cut versus the original 2025/26 figures. The total revised levy is €125.38 million, down from €162.37 million. Source: CRU Adjustment to the PSO Levy 2025/26 (CRU2025164), published 20 October 2025.

On a bill, suppliers usually show the PSO levy as an annual line rather than a monthly one. Electric Ireland, for example, lists it as an annual charge of about €19.10 for the period from 1 December 2025, which is the €1.46 monthly figure over twelve months with VAT added. The exact wording varies by supplier, but the underlying regulated amount is the same for everyone.

Why the PSO Levy Is Back After Two Years at Zero

If you looked at your bill in 2023 or 2024 and saw no PSO levy at all, you were not imagining it. The levy has an unusual feature: it moves in the opposite direction to wholesale electricity prices. When wholesale prices are high, renewable generators earn plenty in the market and need less top-up support, so the levy falls. When wholesale prices drop, those generators earn less and need more support, so the levy rises.

During the 2022 energy crisis that relationship went to an extreme. For the 2022/23 PSO year the funding requirement was negative €491.25 million, and for the first time ever domestic customers received a PSO payment on their bills of €89.10 rather than paying a charge. For 2023/24 the requirement was still negative at €67.47 million, and the CRU chose to set the levy to zero to soften the expected jump the following year. As wholesale gas prices eased back from their peak, that jump duly arrived: the levy returned to a positive €251.79 million for 2024/25, then settled at €125.38 million for 2025/26.

Does Solar Reduce Your PSO Levy?

No, and it is worth being straight about that. Because the PSO levy is a fixed charge per customer rather than a rate per unit, it does not fall when you use less grid electricity. A home that generates most of its own power from solar pays exactly the same €1.46 a month as a home with no panels at all. The same is true of the standing charge, the other fixed element on an Irish bill. Neither one moves with your consumption, so neither one is affected by going solar.

What solar does reduce is the part of the bill that is far bigger: the variable, per-unit charge for the electricity you import. Every kilowatt-hour your panels produce and you use in the house is a unit you do not buy from the grid at roughly 30 to 35 cent including VAT. On a typical bill the unit charges dwarf the fixed PSO levy and standing charge combined, so cutting your imports is where the real saving sits. Put simply: solar cannot shave a euro or two off the PSO line, but it can take a large bite out of the €1,500 to €1,800 of unit charges a typical home pays over a year.

There is a neat symmetry here too. The PSO levy funds the RESS and REFIT schemes that build Ireland's large wind and solar farms. When you install panels, you are adding your own small piece of renewable generation on top of that, and earning from the surplus you export under the Clean Export Guarantee. The first €400 of that export income each year is tax-free under Revenue's microgeneration exemption. So while the levy itself stays fixed, going solar lets you benefit from renewables on both sides of the meter.

See What Solar Would Save on Your Bill

The PSO levy is a small fixed line you cannot change. The rest of your bill is where solar earns its keep, and the only way to know your own numbers is to run them against your actual usage. We match homeowners with SEAI-registered installers in your county, who size a system to your roof and your consumption, handle the grant and the grid connection, and quote you for free. There is no obligation, and we do not install panels ourselves, so the advice you get is not a sales pitch.

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