The Spark #016: Ireland's €13.8bn Grid Plan and the EV Charging Wave
Shamrock Electrical
Ireland's Climate Change Advisory Council published its 2026 Annual Review today and the transport chapter is direct: the country is overexposed on fossil fuels and EV charging infrastructure needs to accelerate significantly. That message comes on top of the CRU's already-approved €13.8 billion grid investment programme running to 2030, which includes 300km of new underground cables and 27 major substations across the country. This week we also flag an emerging issue for solar installers around the Private Wires Bill, cover Fumagalli garden lighting for the longest evenings of the year, and run through how to price commercial work correctly when you are used to residential rates.
📰 Industry News
Climate Council Calls for EV Charging Surge — and Irish Electricians Are the Ones Who Install Them
The Climate Change Advisory Council released the transport chapter of its 2026 Annual Review this morning, warning that Ireland's heavy reliance on fossil fuels for transport leaves the country exposed to repeated price shocks of the kind seen in 2022 and again in 2025. The Council is calling for significantly accelerated investment in EV charging infrastructure alongside grid capacity upgrades to handle the increased electricity load.
The specific gap the CCAC flagged: Ireland now has over 204,000 electric vehicles on the road but only around 3,200 public chargers, one for every 63 EVs. The council highlighted that hundreds of thousands of households without off-street parking have no viable home charging option, and called for on-street charging infrastructure programmes to close that gap. It welcomed the recent EV scrappage scheme but said charging access is the key barrier to adoption for a significant portion of the population.
What it means for electrical contractors: CCAC reports carry direct weight with government policy and with the ZEVI (Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland) office and CRU. When the advisory council publishes a recommendation at this level, it tends to translate into funded programmes within 12 to 18 months. Home charger installation is already a live and growing revenue stream for RECI-registered electricians. On-street and commercial charging infrastructure — the next wave — is larger-scale work that will require qualified electrical contractors for installation and grid connection. If you are not already comfortable quoting for EV charger installs alongside the regular domestic rewire or consumer unit job, now is the time to get set up.
The €13.8 Billion Grid Investment Programme — What It Means for the Trade
The CRU approved a €13.8 billion electricity grid investment programme covering 2026 to 2030. The programme includes 29 major transmission projects, 27 major distribution substation upgrades, and more than 300km of new underground cable installation across the country. It is the largest single investment in Irish electricity infrastructure in decades and is designed to handle the rapidly growing electricity load from EVs, heat pumps, data centres, and renewable energy expansion.
The scale of what is being built: Underground cable routes of this kind require significant enabling civil and electrical works — ducting, jointing bays, substation connections, earthing systems, protection relays. Much of this work goes to specialist HV contractors but it also generates substantial local enabling works and grid connection jobs at the distribution level. The substation upgrades in particular will involve medium-voltage switchgear, protection systems, and associated building and civils works across 27 sites nationwide.
Why it matters for the solar and battery market too: One of the most common pain points for installers waiting on grid connection approvals from ESB Networks has been capacity constraints at local substations. The 27 substation upgrades in this programme are specifically designed to relieve those constraints. This is the mechanism that will eventually unblock the grid connection queue for domestic solar PV, battery storage, and commercial renewable installations that have been stalling at NC6 and NC7 stage.
⚖️ Compliance Update
Solar Installers: Watch the Private Wires Bill — a Licensing Clause Could Change Things
The government is currently drafting the Private Wires Bill, a piece of legislation designed to modernise Ireland's electricity system by formally allowing private wires in four specific circumstances, including on-street EV charging and hybrid grid connections for commercial properties. In principle it is a positive development. However, a warning from the sector is worth being aware of.
The issue flagged: Solar Ireland CEO Ronan Power told an Oireachtas committee in March 2026 that the current wording of the bill could inadvertently classify residential rooftop solar PV installations as requiring a full CRU electricity licence. If that interpretation is maintained in the final bill, it could add a significant regulatory layer to an installation market currently processing thousands of applications per year under a much simpler framework.
Where it stands: The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy has called for a full impact assessment before any private wires licensing regime is activated. The bill is still being drafted as of this week, with key issues including tariffs, technical standards, and ESB step-in rights all unresolved. Nothing has changed yet for solar PV installers, but this is a situation to monitor over the coming months, particularly if you are scaling solar work as part of your offer.
Practical position for now: Existing SEAI-registered solar PV installations under the standard domestic grant pathway are unaffected. The risk is to future commercial-scale or multi-property installations if the licensing interpretation stands. Keep an eye on Solar Ireland's communications as the bill progresses.
🌿 Late June: The Longest Evenings of the Year
The summer solstice falls this Sunday, June 21. Daylight runs past 10pm. The outdoor entertaining season does not get better than this week and next. For residential contractors, garden and patio lighting is the easiest conversation of the year right now. Every domestic job between now and the end of June is an opportunity to point at the back garden and mention what could be done.
Fumagalli garden lights. Italian-engineered outdoor lighting built to last in the Irish climate. The quality difference between a Fumagalli fitting and a cheaper alternative is immediately visible and customers who invest in it once rarely go back. Fumagalli wall lanterns and hanging lanterns for garden settings are a reliable, long-margin product for June and July.
Shop Fumagalli Lights online, trade pricing available, call 01 401 9907 for contractor rates.
Wall lanterns. For garden walls, rear entrances, and patio areas. The same warm result as a garden post lantern, in a wall-mounted format that suits the majority of Irish properties.
Outdoor sockets. There is no better week of the year to mention outdoor power. Garden parties, outdoor lighting for long evenings, outdoor speakers, garden tools. If the customer does not have an outdoor socket, this is the moment they feel the gap.
🔦 Product Spotlight: LED Bathroom Mirrors
LED Bathroom Mirrors — the Renovation Add-On That Sells Itself
Summer is renovation season. Homeowners waiting until the school holidays to tackle the bathroom are booking work now. An LED illuminated bathroom mirror is consistently one of the most satisfying upgrades in a bathroom renovation, customers who install one almost always comment on it unprompted, and they are a straightforward add-on to any bathroom rewire or lighting upgrade job.
The practical case for suggesting one: the bathroom light is already being updated. The circuit is already live. Adding a mirror with integrated LED lighting is a small additional job that makes a visible difference to the room every single day. The customer does not have to think about it, they just notice that the bathroom looks significantly better. It is the kind of product that gets mentioned to friends and family.
LED bathroom mirrors are available in a range of sizes for over-basin mounting. They provide clean, even facial lighting that standard overhead fittings cannot match, making them particularly popular with homeowners who use the bathroom as a morning routine space. IP44 rated versions are specified for bathroom zones, which is standard practice in any properly certified bathroom electrical install.
Shop LED Bathroom Mirrors online
Trade pricing available on everything. Website prices are retail. Electricians and contractors always get better trade pricing when they contact us directly.
Call 01 401 9907 or email sales@shamrockelectrical.ie
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Cable, trunking, conduit, consumer units, MCBs, RCDs, RCBOs and all switchgear are available in-store at Greenogue. Call or email for stock and trade pricing.
💡 Contractor Tip of the Week
Pricing Commercial Work: Five Things That Are Different From Residential
Many contractors who have built their business on residential work find themselves taking on commercial jobs at residential rates and wondering why the margin is poor. Commercial electrical work is not harder than residential but it is different, and the differences almost all require higher pricing. Here is what to account for.
1: Your rate needs to include more supervision and coordination time. Commercial jobs involve other trades, site managers, health and safety requirements, method statements, and sign-off processes that do not exist on a domestic job. An hour spent in a site coordination meeting is a billable hour. If you are not charging for coordination time, you are losing money on every meeting and every site walkthrough.
2: Commercial certification and compliance has a higher burden. Electrical Installation Condition Reports, periodic inspection records, test certificates for commercial premises, and compliance with commercial building regulations all take longer than domestic certification. Build this time into your quote as a separate line item rather than absorbing it into your labour rate.
3: Commercial customers expect 30-day payment terms, not immediate payment. Your materials are purchased upfront, your labour is paid weekly, but payment from the commercial customer arrives 30 days after invoice. You need to finance that gap. Include a materials float in your margin or negotiate a deposit and stage payments on larger commercial jobs. A domestic customer who pays the day you finish is financially better for you than a commercial customer who pays at 30 days unless the margin accounts for it.
4: Access and working hours cost more on commercial sites. Working outside business hours to avoid disruption, signing in and out of secure sites, working in occupied commercial spaces with restrictions on noise, dust and access windows — all of these reduce your productivity versus a domestic job. If you are quoting a commercial fit-out at the same hourly rate as a house rewire, you will be slower than your quote assumed and the margin disappears.
5: The risk profile is higher. A dispute with a commercial client is more complex, more likely to involve multiple parties, and harder to resolve than a dispute with a homeowner. Your insurance, your contract, your method statement and your record-keeping all need to be in order before you start. The additional overhead of doing commercial work properly should be priced into every commercial quote.
📅 Dates to Know: June and July 2026
- 21 June: Summer solstice. Longest day of the year. Outdoor lighting installs photograph beautifully this week. If you finish a garden lighting job this weekend, get three photos before you leave.
- 1 July: Electric Ireland and Yuno Energy price rises take effect. Bills going up for the majority of Irish households. Every conversation about LED upgrades, time switches and solar is easier after this date.
- 7 July: Apartment planning consultation closes. Revised apartment design standards will shape the electrical specification requirements in the next generation of apartment buildings. Worth tracking if you do apartment work.
- Ongoing: SEAI retrofit grants. Heat pump grant at €12,500, solar PV at €1,800, Windows and Doors now standalone. Retrofit enquiries are still running at record levels. If you are not SEAI-registered, you are not quoting on a large slice of the current residential market.
A week of big-picture signals that point in a consistent direction: electrification is accelerating, the grid is being upgraded to handle it, and the contractors who understand what is coming are positioning now. The EV charging wave, the solar pipeline, the retrofit grants — these are not future possibilities, they are current demand. The question is whether your business is set up to quote for them.
The Shamrock Electrical Team
Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole, Co. Dublin
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About Shamrock Electrical Supplies
Shamrock Electrical Supplies is an electrical wholesaler and retailer based in Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole, Co. Dublin. We supply professional electrical contractors and homeowners across Ireland.
Contractors who open a trade account get competitive trade pricing, reliable stock availability, and a team that knows what they are talking about.
Find Us
Shamrock Electrical Supplies
Unit 22, Block 613, Jordanstown Road
Greenogue Business Park
Rathcoole, Co. Dublin, D24 TX98
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday: 7am to 5pm
Saturday: 9am to 1pm
Sunday: Closed
Get in Touch
📞 01 401 9907
✉️ sales@shamrockelectrical.ie
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