Two jobs, one page. First check if you qualify for the €300 EV home charger grant and see the real net installed cost. Then see what home charging actually costs per 100 km and per year — against petrol and against public fast charging — the numbers that pay the charger back.
The EV Home Charger Grant (funded by ZEVI, administered through SEAI) pays up to €300 toward a new home charge point — one grant per property, installed by a Safe Electric registered electrician.
1. Do you have off-street parking (driveway or garage) at home?
2. Has this property claimed the home charger grant before?
3. Are you in an apartment or using shared parking?
A fitted Zappi-class smart charger typically runs €1,000–1,200; simpler units start from about €700. Default €1,100 assumes a fitted smart charger.
Home charging on a night or EV tariff is a fraction of petrol or public fast charging. These are the numbers that pay the charger back — put in your own car and driving.
Many suppliers sell a dedicated 2–5am EV rate around 8–10c — that window is where the money is if you can schedule into it.
Do you have solar panels (or plan to get them)?Public fast charging is compared at a fixed 59c/kWh — a typical ESB ecars fast-charge price band. Convenience pricing, and it shows.
Same car, same distance — only the fuel differs. Cheapest is highlighted.
The €300 grant requires a Safe Electric registered installer — a DIY or unregistered install gets you nothing. Get a smart charger that schedules into your cheap window, fitted by someone who can sign the paperwork.
All links carry a nofollow/sponsored tag and are placeholders until the programmes are approved.
Apply to SEAI online before the installation starts, get your approval, then have the charge point fitted within six months by a Safe Electric registered electrician. You claim afterwards with the electrician's paperwork (the completion documentation and their registration details). Approval first, install second, claim third — do it out of order and you can lose the €300.
No — not since the grant was decoupled from car ownership in 2022. You no longer have to own or have ordered an EV. Landlords fitting a charger for tenants, and buyers preparing a home before they get the car, can both apply. You still need off-street parking (a driveway or garage) and a property that hasn't already claimed.
Yes, with the landlord's permission — but the grant attaches to the property, not the person, and it's one grant per property. In practice the owner usually applies, or agrees to it, because the charge point becomes part of the house. If your landlord won't, they can apply themselves; it adds value to their property.
Yes, if you're on a smart or EV tariff — scheduling the charge into the cheap 2–5am window is where the savings actually come from, and a basic timer-only unit does that clumsily. Solar-aware models like the myenergi Zappi go further and divert surplus PV from your own panels into the car, so daytime top-ups can be effectively free. On a flat 24h tariff the extra buys you less.
Around 59c or more per kWh — you're paying for convenience, the hardware, and the grid connection at a motorway stop. Home night charging is roughly a third of that, and an EV-tariff window is closer to a sixth. That gap, multiplied by a year's driving, is the whole case for a home charger: the calculator above shows it in euro for your own mileage.
No planning permission — a domestic charge point is exempt. It runs off your existing electricity supply, so there's no new connection to buy. The one variable is your fuse board: a very old or full board may need an upgrade to add the circuit safely, and that's usually what makes one installation quote dearer than another. Ask each installer whether a board upgrade is included.