How fast is demand for home EV chargers growing in Ireland?

The best signals for home EV charger demand in Ireland are rising quickly, but they count cars and grants, not charger jobs. This guide sets out the SIMI and SEAI figures as of November 2026, what supports demand into 2028, and a simple way to turn national numbers into an estimate for your own area.

How many new EVs are being registered in Ireland?

SIMI counted 35,195 new electric cars in January to September 2026, up 57.3% on the same months of 2025. For the whole of 2025 it recorded 23,601, which was 18.89% of all new cars.

Source: SIMI, 2 January 2026; SIMI, 30 September 2026.

Total new car registrations grew far more slowly: 3% in 2025 and 5.4% in the first nine months of 2026. By our own arithmetic on the SIMI figures, electric cars were about 27% of registrations in those nine months (35,195 of 128,288), and the nine months are already about 49% above the whole of 2025.

Two cautions before you quote these. Do not scale nine months up to twelve, because monthly registrations are not flat; wait for the full-year release (SIMI published the 2025 figures on 2 January 2026). And these are electric cars only: SIMI reports plug-in hybrids separately (14.82% of 2025 registrations), and they can also use a home charger.

How many home chargers are grant-funded each year?

SEAI gives no charger-only count in the statement we used. It says over 18,000 motorists received grants to buy an electric vehicle and a home charger in 2025, without splitting the two. Charger-only figures appear in local press, but we have not found them in an SEAI publication, so we leave them out.

The grant rules shape how big your pool really is. As of November 2026, SEAI's Electric Vehicle Home Charger Grant works like this:

• Amount and eligibility. Up to €300 towards a home charger and its installation. Homeowners can apply whether or not they own an EV, so not every grant customer is a new-car buyer.
• Who installs. A Safe Electric Registered Electrical Contractor must do the work, and the charger must be a smart charger on SEAI's Smart Charger Register.
• Once per property. SEAI uses the MPRN to confirm the home, and a property with an earlier EV home charge point grant payment is not eligible.
• Offer first, then work. Work started before the start date on the Letter of Offer is ineligible. You then have six months from the date on the letter to finish and send in the Cert 3, test record, installation photo and invoice.
• Installers as applicants. A third party can apply on a resident's behalf once SEAI has your CRO number. You email it to SEAI first and wait to be told it is processed. Third-party applications walks through the steps.

What supports EV demand in 2027 and 2028?

Budget 2027 extends the €5,000 VRT relief for electric vehicles until 31 December 2028, and the home charger grant is open now. Citizens Information also lists a 1% increase in VRT rates from 1 January 2027 for cars in bands 3 to 20, which covers cars emitting more than 80g/km of CO₂.

These are policy facts, not forecasts. None of our sources predicts registrations or charger installations for 2027 or 2028, so treat them as context, not as a growth number. The SEAI grant page gives no closing date but says funding is limited, and terms change, so check it on the day you quote a customer.

How do EV sales translate into charger jobs?

Not one to one. A registration is a car; a charger job needs a home with off-street parking, no charger yet and a customer who picks you. Work through it in four steps:

Written out: charger jobs per year ≈ N × H × C × W. You cannot read H and C from the national figures, so ask about parking and an existing charger on the first call.

Registrations also undercount one group. The grant is open to homeowners without an EV, so some customers will ask because of the grant rather than a new car. If you also sell solar, selling EV chargers to solar customers covers that overlap. Where a customer has an offer from their electricity supplier, see competing with energy supplier charger offers.

Smart Solar collects enquiries from homeowners who ask for quotes and passes them on to installers; we install nothing ourselves. Today those are enquiries about solar PV from private homeowners in Ireland. If you also install solar and want to talk about receiving them, register your company below.

What do the numbers not tell you?

They do not tell you how many charger jobs exist, where they are or how many will come to you. They tell you the market is growing.

Source: SIMI, 2 January 2026; SEAI, 8 January 2026; SEAI, November 2026; Citizens Information, Budget 2027.

Typical mistakes when reading the numbers

• Treating percentage growth in registrations as growth in your charger jobs.
• Comparing a nine-month figure with a full-year figure as if they covered the same period.
• Reading SEAI's combined EV and home charger figure as a count of chargers.
• Forgetting that the grant is paid once per property, so homes that have claimed before are not grant customers.
• Promising a customer a start date before the Letter of Offer has arrived.

Where can you follow the numbers yourself?

SIMI, SEAI and Citizens Information cover most of what you need, and all are free to read.

• SIMI. It releases registration figures monthly and a full-year release in early January. Its 2025 release has the electric and plug-in hybrid split, and its 30 September 2026 release has the January to September figures.
• SEAI. Its end-of-year statement has the 2025 highlights, including the combined EV and home charger figure, and the home charger grant page has the current rules.
• Citizens Information. Its Budget 2027 summary lists the VRT changes. For the legal detail, check Revenue, which administers VRT.

For the wider picture, read the EV chargers overview, then becoming an EV charger installer if you are still deciding whether to enter the trade. To compare with the other two trades, see the solar installer market and the heat pump market.