Choosing the Right Size Battery For your Solar Panels

Inside this Edition:

• Choosing the Right Battery Capacity to go With Your Solar Panels

• Ireland’s Electricity Prices the Highest in the EU

• U-Values & R-Values: Essential Terms for Understanding Your Home

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Choosing the Right Battery Size for Your Solar Panels

Roughly 50% of homes getting solar panels also opt to have a solar battery installed at the same time. There are lots of benefits to doing so. But what level of solar battery capacity do you need?

A battery can increase the amount of solar energy that you use, rather than export to the grid, for increased savings. A battery can also be charged cheaply at night, and then used to power your home in the day.

Most solar batteries start at 5 kWh in capacity, but can go higher. This is done by either getting a larger battery, or by combining multiple battery modules.

What level of battery capacity you needs depends on multiple factors about your solar PV system, and electricity usage.

Ireland’s Electricity Prices the Highest in the EU

Ireland has had among the most expensive electricity in the EU for several years, but no we officially top the table. A prize that no-one is excited to claim.

Eurostat data for the second half of 2025 shows that household electricity prices in Ireland reached 40.42c per kWh on average with all taxes and levies included.

That is the highest in the EU by a significant margin. Belgium, which has the second highest prices, paid an average of 33.01c per kWh. The average across all EU countries was 24.56c per kWh.

Electricity prices in Ireland have increased massively since 2022, when SEAI figures show that households paid just 22.8c per kWh in the first half of the year.

These latest figures show prices nearly doubling in the space of four years, with the expectations of further increases to come.

Ireland still relies heavily on gas for electricity generation, and the war in the Middle East has caused massive disruption to global supplies of Liquid Natural Gas.

While the resulting price increases have yet to be passed on to customers, that will likely soon change as the forward hedging by electricity suppliers runs out of its pre-war prices.

U-Values & R-Values: Essential Terms for Understanding Your Home

If you’re planning on improving your home, then you’re going to need to understand how a lot of its thermal performance.

When talking about how good windows, walls, and insulation are at retaining heat two terms that will come up frequently are their U-values and R-values.

But what do these two things measure, how do they differ, and what do they mean for making your home more energy efficient.

We hope you enjoyed the articles this week. Together with your support, we are helping to build a greener, more affordable Ireland for everyone. That’s your energy update. Until the next edition.

Briain Kelly,

Editor, EnergyEfficiency.ie