- Sunshine on the best roofs
- 844 h/yr
- Yield (south-facing)
- 840 kWh/kWp
- 4 kWp system makes
- 3,360 kWh/yr
- Payback
- 20.4 years
How much sun County Antrim gets
County Antrim ranks 14th of the 15 counties we cover for sunshine, between Cumbria and Highland.
A 4 kWp system here makes about 440 kWh a year less than in Northumberland (12% less). Using more of what you generate yourself — rather than exporting it — matters more than it does further south.
What a 4 kWp system is worth here
On a south-facing roof in County Antrim, a 4 kWp system (around nine panels) would cost about £5,600 and save roughly £246 in its first year for a typical three-bed home on a 27p/kWh tariff, with nothing assumed for exported power. With energy prices rising 3% a year, that pays back in about 20.4 years.
Why the payback is so different from similar counties in Great Britain
Northern Ireland has no Smart Export Guarantee, so suppliers don't have to pay for the solar power you send to the grid, and we assume nothing for it. With Great Britain's 12p/kWh export rate, the same system here would earn about £294 a year from exports and pay back in about 9.3 years, close to Cumbria's 9.2 years with similar sunshine. If your supplier does pay for exports, enter your rate in the calculator. Using more of your own solar, with a battery or a hot-water diverter, also counts for more here.
Install costs use the calculator's national range: there's no reliable published breakdown of solar install prices by county. Northern Ireland electricity prices aren't set by Ofgem's price cap — enter your own rate in the calculator.
Connecting to the grid in County Antrim
Your network operator here is NIE Networks (Northern Ireland). NIE Networks runs its own versions of the connection process (G98/NI / G99/NI): small systems are notified after installation, larger ones need approval first. Your installer handles it.
Grants and schemes in Northern Ireland
The Smart Export Guarantee covers Great Britain only, so there's no guaranteed export tariff in Northern Ireland; any payment for exported power is at your supplier's discretion. The figures on this page assume none.
No Boiler Upgrade Scheme
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme doesn't cover Northern Ireland, so the calculator's heat pump grant doesn't apply here.
Confirm with: NI Direct for current Northern Ireland schemes.
Affordable Warmth Scheme
Northern Ireland Housing Executive scheme for lower-income households (insulation and heating upgrades).
Confirm with: Your local council, which assesses eligibility for the Housing Executive.
- 0% VAT on solar panels, batteries and heat pumps until 31 March 2027 — install prices in the calculator already assume it.
Scheme notes last checked 2026-09-23.
Where these numbers come from
We sampled 9 real roofs around Ballymena with Google's Solar API (imagery 2021, sampled 2026-09-23) and took the sunshine on the second-best-placed roof — a well-oriented, unshaded roof, without letting one odd reading set the figure. The yield scales the calculator's national 950 kWh/kWp by how that compares with the middle of the first 15 counties we sampled. Your own roof's direction, pitch and shading will move it either way.
- The aerial imagery here is Google's medium-resolution tier, so roof-by-roof detail is coarser than in the cities.