Energy Efficiency Grant

You must have 1–50 paid employees and meet the small-enterprise financial test: annual turnover or balance-sheet total of €10 million or less. Partner and linked businesses count when assessing your size. The programme explains that holdings of 25–50% require adding the relevant proportion of the other business's figures, while holdings above 50% require adding all of them.

Your business must be registered, trading for at least six months and operating in the area of the Local Enterprise Office receiving your application. It must be solvent, have current Revenue tax clearance, and have completed one of the specified reports or audits. Existing Enterprise Ireland and IDA clients are excluded. The grant must make a difference to whether the project proceeds; it cannot simply pay for an investment that would happen anyway.

Eligible applicants include companies, self-employed people and partnerships carrying on a trade or profession whose profits fall under Case I or II of Schedule D of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. These are the programme's tax categories for trading or professional income. Sports bodies with otherwise qualifying activities can qualify despite the section 235 tax exemption, as can charities with otherwise taxable trading income covered by the section 208 exemption. Other non-commercial organisations do not qualify merely because they are charities or nonprofits.

You need fixed premises liable for commercial rates, or a tourism establishment approved under the Fáilte Ireland National Quality Assurance Framework. Rates paid on your behalf through a lease can count; premises eligible for rates but not yet assessed need local-authority documentation. Own the premises or have at least 12 months left on the lease, or an agreed renewal option. Multiple premises can be covered within the same undertaking's overall limit. Businesses operating solely from a home office are excluded.

Equipment being replaced or upgraded must be more than five years old. The replacement or upgrade must improve energy efficiency compared with the equipment in place when you apply. Equipment costs must exceed the combined installation and commissioning costs. Technologies within SEAI's Triple E register scope must meet its new criteria and, when the new platform is operational, be listed there. This is SEAI's qualifying energy-efficient equipment register. Equipment outside its scope needs evidence of improved energy efficiency and, where relevant, other environmental improvements.

Small wind and hydro projects require a prior technical assessment and local-authority planning approval. Anaerobic digestion equipment, which breaks down organic material, and land spreading of its residue require you to submit planning approval or a permit with your application, or a letter from the appropriate regulator confirming that planning permission or a permit is not required. Where applicable, provide suitable residue storage and arrangements for a permitted contractor to collect surplus material.

The grant excludes solar panels, biomass and biogas boilers, insulation and building energy upgrades such as space-heating heat pumps or ventilation heat recovery. It also excludes fossil-fuel activities, waste-treatment systems needed for regulatory compliance, and mobile assets such as electric forklifts and air compressors. Primary agriculture, fisheries, aquaculture, coal, steel, gambling, adult entertainment, tobacco and non-medicinal cannabis activities are excluded; further activities can be rejected under the programme's sector policy.

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Discuss your project with your Local Enterprise Office, using the official office finder linked from the grant page. Prepare your qualifying report or audit, project information and the evidence of eligibility requested by the office. Provide your Tax Reference Number and Tax Clearance Access Number for Revenue verification, and the commercial-rates or tourism-approval documentation.

Submit the application before committing to, ordering, purchasing, contracting for or starting any part of the project. No project expenditure or activity can begin before submission. Supporting documents may follow only where the office permits this; submitting them later does not allow you to start the project before applying.