Last updated: September 2026. Human written and fact checked against each named source.
Ireland is in the middle of the largest home energy upgrade programme in its history: a record 58,128 upgrades completed under SEAI schemes in 2025, a €640 million budget for 2026, and grant applications running at double last year’s pace. It is also a long way behind its 2030 heat pump target, and most of its homes still burn oil or gas. This page collects the current figures on home energy upgrades and retrofitting in Ireland: how many homes are being upgraded, what the grants are, what the work really costs, how the stock is heated, and how far the country is from its targets. Every number links to the SEAI, Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, CSO or Eurostat release it came from.
Key Retrofit Statistics for Ireland at a Glance
- 58,128 home energy upgrades were completed under SEAI schemes in 2025, up 7.7% on the 53,984 completed in 2024 (calculated). Source: Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026
- The 2026 budget of over €640 million is expected to support more than 73,000 home energy upgrades. Source: National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026
- SEAI processed 29,000 grant applications in the first quarter of 2026, up 96% on the same quarter of 2025, including more than 7,000 for the new windows and doors grant. Source: SEAI and Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, April 2026
- 196,463 BER-assessed homes now have a heat pump, up 37,346 in a year, and 216,174 have solar panels. Source: CSO Domestic Building Energy Ratings, table EBQ02, Q2 2026
- Around 27,300 heat pumps had been installed in existing homes through SEAI and local authority schemes by the end of 2025, 6.8% of the 400,000 targeted by 2030 (calculated). Source: National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026
- A deep retrofit through an SEAI One Stop Shop had a median works cost of €63,600, a median grant of €21,649 and a median cost to the homeowner of €39,919, taking the typical home from D2 to A2. Source: SEAI, National Retrofit Plan Full Year Report 2024
- The maximum grant for a heat pump system rose to €12,500 in February 2026, combining €6,500 for the heat pump, €2,000 for radiators and pipework and a new €4,000 renewable heating bonus. Source: Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, 27 January 2026
- Around 90% of Ireland’s heat demand is still met by fossil fuels, and heating accounts for more than a third of national energy demand. Source: SEAI, National Comprehensive Heating and Cooling Assessment, May 2026
- Natural gas is the main heating fuel in 33% of Irish households, kerosene in 26% and heat pumps in 7%. Source: CSO Household Environmental Behaviours, table HEBEU06, 2024
- 4.5% of people in Ireland could not afford to keep their home adequately warm in 2025, down from 7.2% in 2023 and about half the EU average of 8.8%. Source: Eurostat, ilc_mdes01
How Many Homes Are Being Upgraded
The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment’s National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026 records 58,128 energy upgrades completed under SEAI schemes in 2025, the highest annual total yet. The Department of Housing’s Local Authority Retrofit Scheme upgraded a further 2,673 council homes in 2025 at a cost of €90 million. Between 2019 and the end of 2025, the State provided almost €1.7 billion in SEAI supports for 244,000 home energy improvements, including almost 32,700 fully funded upgrades for households at risk of energy poverty (National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026). By April 2026 the Department put the running total since 2019 at 257,000 upgrades (SEAI, April 2026).
The growth has been steep. SEAI’s full year report shows property upgrades rising from 15,244 in 2021 to 27,200 in 2022, 47,953 in 2023 and 53,984 in 2024. Solar PV became the largest single scheme by annual volume over that period, growing from 1,822 upgrades in 2019 to 28,424 in 2024, while the fully funded Warmer Homes Scheme more than doubled from 3,426 to 7,743 (SEAI, National Retrofit Plan Full Year Report 2024). In 2025, more than 8,100 energy poor homes received free upgrades worth over €230 million (SEAI, August 2026).
Deep retrofits are rising within those totals. More than 21,800 homes were upgraded to a BER of B2 or better in 2024, up 24% on 2023, and the 2024 upgrades were estimated to save 146 GWh of energy and 68,000 tonnes of CO2 a year while supporting around 12,000 jobs (SEAI Full Year Report 2024).
Demand in 2026
Budget 2026 gave SEAI a record capital allocation of over €640 million for residential and community energy upgrades, with a target of more than 73,000 upgrades in the year, and the Department’s sectoral capital plan sets aside up to €3.7 billion in carbon tax revenue for the programme to 2030 (National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026).
Homeowners responded to the new grants immediately. SEAI processed 29,000 applications between January and March 2026, up 96% year on year, with applications for individual upgrades up 186%. They included more than 7,000 applications for the new windows and doors grant, more than 1,730 for attic insulation (up 81%), more than 1,000 for cavity wall insulation (up 62%) and more than 350 for heat pumps (up 95%) (SEAI, April 2026). SEAI supported 12,300 completed upgrades in the same quarter (SEAI, June 2026), so completions are running well behind applications, and contractor capacity rather than homeowner interest is now the limiting factor.
Grants Available in 2026
The National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026 reshaped the grant menu from February and March 2026. The main changes announced by the Department on 27 January 2026 were a fixed heat pump system grant of up to €12,500, a new grant for energy-efficient windows and doors where the building fabric meets a minimum standard, higher fixed grants for attic and cavity wall insulation, a dedicated attic insulation grant for first-time buyers of existing homes, a new grant for a second wall insulation measure, and higher fixed insulation grants for homeowners on qualifying welfare payments. Grant rates for Approved Housing Bodies rise to around 75% of cost, and around 80% for fuel poor homes (Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, January 2026).
Alongside the grants, the domestic solar PV grant stays at €1,800 for 2026, solar panels carry a 0% VAT rate and heat pumps a 9% rate, the Home Energy Upgrade Loan Scheme lets homeowners borrow between €5,000 and €75,000 at reduced interest, and landlords can deduct up to €10,000 of retrofit costs net of grants from rental income (National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026).
What a Retrofit Really Costs
SEAI publishes the median cost of work actually paid for under its schemes, which is the most reliable Irish guide to retrofit prices. For deep retrofits through a registered One Stop Shop, the 2024 full year report gives these median figures for private homes (SEAI, National Retrofit Plan Full Year Report 2024):
| Home type (One Stop Shop) | Median works cost | Median grant | Median cost to owner | BER before and after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment | €22,914 | €6,100 | €16,378 | D2 to B1 |
| Mid terrace | €50,889 | €18,800 | €33,805 | E2 to A2 |
| Semi-detached or end terrace | €62,485 | €21,000 | €38,650 | D2 to A2 |
| Detached | €66,503 | €23,200 | €42,900 | D2 to A2 |
| All private homes | €63,600 | €21,649 | €39,919 | D2 to A2 |
Source: SEAI Full Year Report 2024, rolling twelve-month medians at time of grant payment, before the grant increases of 2026. On the all-homes medians the grant covered 34.0% of the works cost (calculated).
Individual measures under the step-by-step Better Energy Homes scheme had much lower median costs in the same report: €2,000 for cavity wall insulation (median grant €1,700), €2,179 for roof insulation (€1,450), €8,467 for internal wall insulation (€3,500), €22,000 for external wall insulation (€6,000), €15,291 for a heat pump (€6,500) and €10,650 for solar PV (€2,100). Grant levels for several of those measures have since risen, so the net cost to homeowners in 2026 is lower than these 2024 medians suggest.
What the Upgrades Are Worth
SEAI’s August 2026 analysis of almost 50,000 home sales found that each step up the 15 point BER scale is associated with a 2.7% higher sale price nationally, 2.8% for houses and 2.2% for apartments, rising to 4.7% in rural areas and 1.7% in urban Dublin (SEAI, August 2026). A One Stop Shop retrofit that takes a home from D2 to A2 climbs nine steps on that scale. Applying SEAI’s national average of 2.7% a step, compounded, points to a premium in the region of 27% (calculated), although the SEAI figure is an average across all sales and a large jump may not scale evenly. The full sale price evidence is collected in our Irish property market statistics.
Heat Pumps and Solar Panels
CSO Building Energy Rating data shows how quickly renewable technologies are spreading through the assessed stock. By the second quarter of 2026, 196,463 of the 1,367,605 BER-assessed dwellings, or 14.4%, had a heat pump, and 216,174, or 15.8%, had solar panels. Both figures grew by more than a fifth in a year: heat pump homes by 37,346 and solar homes by 39,699 since the second quarter of 2025. Even so, 991,584 assessed homes, 72.5%, have neither (CSO table EBQ02; shares and changes calculated).
Most of those heat pumps are in new homes. 79.0% of BER-assessed homes built between 2020 and 2024 have a heat pump, and 45.5% of those built between 2015 and 2019, but the share is just 4.3% for homes built before 1950 and 4.0% for homes built between 1978 and 1999 (calculated from table EBQ02). The retrofit challenge is the existing stock, and there the national numbers are small: SEAI schemes had supported around 18,000 heat pump installations between 2019 and 2025, and the local authority programme about 9,300 between 2021 and 2025 (National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026).
How Irish Homes Are Heated
SEAI’s National Comprehensive Heating and Cooling Assessment, published in May 2026, found that heating accounts for more than a third of Ireland’s total energy demand and almost a quarter of national greenhouse gas emissions, that around 90% of heat demand is still met by fossil fuels, and that around 80% depends on imported energy (SEAI, May 2026).
At household level, the CSO’s 2024 survey found natural gas was the main heating fuel in 33% of homes, kerosene in 26%, electricity in 8%, heat pumps in 7% and diesel or gas oil in 7%, with wood logs, peat and coal together making up a further 11% (CSO table HEBEU06). Among BER-assessed homes, heating oil and mains gas are tied as the main space heating fuel at 33.8% each, with electricity at 25.9%. The fuel tracks the rating: 18.7% of oil-heated assessed homes are rated E, F or G, while 60.5% of electrically heated homes, more than half of which have a heat pump, are rated A or B (all calculated from CSO table EBQ02).
Progress Against the 2030 Targets
The Climate Action Plan commits Ireland to retrofitting the equivalent of 500,000 homes to a BER of B2 or cost optimal and installing 400,000 heat pumps in existing homes by the end of 2030. As early as its 2024 full year report, SEAI warned that while the B2 target for 2025 was potentially within reach, the heat pump target was going to be extremely difficult to achieve (SEAI Full Year Report 2024).
The 2026 plan confirms the gap. Adding the roughly 18,000 heat pumps installed through SEAI schemes to the roughly 9,300 installed under the local authority programme gives about 27,300 heat pumps in existing homes by the end of 2025, or 6.8% of the 2030 target. Reaching 400,000 would require about 74,500 installations a year from 2026 to 2030 (both calculated from the National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026). The new €12,500 heat pump system grant is aimed squarely at that shortfall.
Where the Upgrades Are Happening
Dublin leads by volume. Of the 186,703 SEAI property upgrades completed between 2019 and 2024, 46,651, or 25.0%, were in County Dublin, including 12,188 in 2024 alone. Cork followed with 22,808 and Galway with 11,966 over the same period (SEAI Full Year Report 2024; share calculated). In Dublin in 2024, 6,324 homes installed grant-aided solar PV, 2,998 completed Better Energy Homes measures and 2,490 received fully funded Warmer Homes upgrades.
Warmth and Energy Poverty
The upgrades are showing up in how households report their living conditions. Eurostat’s survey data shows 4.5% of people in Ireland unable to afford to keep their home adequately warm in 2025, down from 6.8% in 2022 and 7.2% in 2023, and about half the EU average of 8.8% (Eurostat, ilc_mdes01). The condition of the older stock that these programmes target, including damp, leaks and energy ratings by age, is set out in our housing stock statistics for Ireland.
Commercial buildings face the same pressure, with only 19.6% of offices rated in 2026 reaching A or B (calculated); our commercial property statistics for Dublin cover non-domestic ratings and refurbishment activity.
What a Retrofit Means for Walls, Plaster and Paint
Almost every fabric upgrade finishes with finishing trades. Internal wall insulation, known as dry lining, means new plasterboard or insulated board and a full skim and repaint of every treated room; external wall insulation ends in a new render coat that needs a breathable finish; new windows and doors leave reveals, sills and surrounds to be made good. With more than 7,000 homes applying for the windows and doors grant in a single quarter, the making good that follows is a growing share of plastering and decorating work. The wider renovation spending picture is in our home renovation statistics, and the capacity of the trades behind it in our painting and decorating trade statistics.
Method and Sources
All figures on this page were checked at source in September 2026. Programme totals for 2025, cumulative investment and upgrades since 2019, heat pump installations, the 2026 budget and target, the €3.7 billion allocation to 2030, loans and tax measures are from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment’s National Residential Retrofit Plan 2026. The 2026 grant changes are from the Department’s press release of 27 January 2026. First quarter 2026 applications are from the SEAI and Department statement of 21 April 2026, and completed first quarter upgrades from SEAI’s statement of 4 June 2026. Median retrofit and measure costs, annual upgrades by scheme from 2019 to 2024, B2 upgrades, energy and carbon savings, jobs and county volumes are from SEAI’s National Retrofit Plan Full Year Report 2024, published April 2025. The BER price premium and 2025 Warmer Homes figures are from SEAI’s statement of 17 August 2026. Heating demand and fossil fuel shares are from SEAI’s National Comprehensive Heating and Cooling Assessment statement of 19 May 2026. Heat pump, solar and heating fuel figures for BER-assessed dwellings are from CSO table EBQ02 (second quarter 2026, published 27 August 2026), and household heating fuels from CSO table HEBEU06 (2024). The ability to keep homes warm is Eurostat indicator ilc_mdes01. Where a share, change or requirement is described as calculated, it was derived by OS Decor from the named source and the working is available on request. The page will be refreshed when SEAI publishes its next retrofit progress report, after each quarterly CSO BER release and after Budget 2027 in October.
How OS Decor Helps
OS Decor plasters, skims and paints Dublin homes after energy upgrades, from making good around new windows and doors to finishing dry-lined rooms and painting new external render. If your home is part of the 2026 retrofit wave, our plastering Dublin team can finish the job the insulation contractor starts, our house painting Dublin service covers the redecoration inside and out, and you can contact us for a written quote timed around your retrofit schedule.
