Some homeowners in Ireland could be in for a cash boost after Eamon Ryan’s latest announcement to help amid the cost-of-living crisis and also aid Ireland in reaching its climate goals.
The Environment Minister has confirmed that anyone looking to install solar panels on their home will be able to do so VAT-free soon, as plans go before Cabinet this week.
He told Newstalk that the 23 per cent VAT rate will be reduced to 0 per cent, which will cut around €1,000 off the average cost of getting panels installed.
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The average price of installation is €9,000 however, once VAT is taken away alongside the SEAI solar grant of up to €2,400, the average cost of installation will drop to around €5,600.
Minister Eamon Ryan said the Government will also aim to deliver five additional gigawatts of power through solar across the next three years.
He explained: "We’ve set really ambitious targets. Now, we’ve also changed the law in the last year.
"It used to be very difficult to sell power back to the grid and we’ve changed that. That has changed.
"There will be further changes this year in terms of, particularly, allowing farmers and large businesses to be able to generate and use and sell their own power.
"To further accelerate that, we’re going to, subject to Cabinet agreeing on Tuesday, take the VAT off solar panels to bring the cost down.
"It’s still, for a lot of families, a lot of households, you look at the equation and you think, ‘oh it might take six or seven years’ – but if we can shave a year off that on the payback, it will help the expansion."
Around 50,000 households have already had panels installed on their homes and Mr Ryan is hoping that this change will encourage many more people to make the switch.
"We’ve set a target in the next three years to deliver five gigawatts of solar," he went on to explain.
"Now if that was in full capacity - it never is and the capacity factor is lower anyway - but that is roughly the size of the power demand as we speak, at the moment, in the whole country.
"It is as much renewables as we have built over the last 20 years.
"That’s what we need to do on solar alone as well as on offshore wind and onshore wind.
"These sorts of tax signals to help it happen, I think, is going to be a great help."
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