How Compare Solar NI works, and how it makes money

I built this site because homeowners in Northern Ireland kept being handed advice written for somewhere else. The Smart Export Guarantee, the scheme that obliges suppliers to pay for the electricity your panels send back to the grid, requires the installation to be in Great Britain. It has never covered a house in Ballymena. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to people in England and Wales. Both get quoted at NI homeowners anyway, usually alongside a grant for solar panels that does not exist here, by someone who wants an appointment on Thursday evening.

This page is the part most comparison sites leave out.

Who runs this site

My name is Connor McAuley. I built Compare Solar NI, and I write and edit everything published on it. The site is operated by Move at Pace Ltd. I am not an installer. I do not fit panels, I do not sell hardware, and I have no stake in any installation company.

I have read all 368 quote requests that came through the form between March and early September 2026, and I speak to the installer who works them. That is the whole team.

How the site makes money

Two ways, and nothing else.

1. A fee when an installer accepts a quote request

When you complete the quote form and an installer in the network accepts your request, that installer pays a flat introduction fee. It is the same fee whether you end up with a 3kW system or a 10kW one. The fee never appears on your quote, and I have no way to move an installer's price up or down. If you decide against solar altogether, nothing is owed by anyone.

2. Commission on some retailer links

A handful of guides cover plug-in balcony kits. Some of the links to retailers on those pages pay a small commission if you buy. Every one of them carries rel="sponsored", which is the tag Google's link spam policy requires on a paid or affiliate link. They were all tagged in September 2026, after I found some had been running with no rel attribute at all. No retailer pays to appear in a guide or to change what a guide says about their kit, and there is no commission of any kind on an installed solar system.

Your details are not sold on to a lead broker, and nothing on this site is paid placement.

The installer network, as it stands today

The network is currently one MCS-certified installer, covering all of Northern Ireland. That is smaller than the word network usually implies, which is why it is stated here rather than buried.

The quote form asks for your consent for up to three installers to contact you. With one firm in the network today, you will hear from one. When that changes, this paragraph changes with it and the date at the top of the page moves.

The list at NI solar installers is a different thing. It is a directory built from public review records, not the network, and no installer pays to be on it. Whoever you get quotes from, compare at least three before you sign anything. Our guide to solar panel scams in Northern Ireland covers the pressure tactics worth walking away from.

What happens to what you tell us

The quote form saves your answers as you go, so you can come back to it. If you enter your name and email and then stop, that partial record stays with me. It is never passed to an installer, because your details only go anywhere once you have completed the request and given consent. You get one email reminding you the request is sitting unfinished, and that is the end of it. Ask and it is deleted.

Analytics is PostHog, and it only loads if you accept cookies. There is no Google Analytics on this site. The full detail, including how to get your data deleted, is in the privacy policy.

How the facts on this site get checked

Every rate, threshold and scheme date is checked against the body that sets it rather than against another blog: the Housing Executive and nidirect for grants, the Consumer Council and the Utility Regulator for prices, the suppliers themselves for tariffs, NIE Networks for grid connections, and the MCS register for certification. When a page has been checked, the check date is printed on it. If a page carries no date, treat its numbers as unchecked and tell me.

Three of the checks behind this page, all made on 6 September 2026. The Smart Export Guarantee requires installations to be located in Great Britain, per Ofgem. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to people in England and Wales, per gov.uk. Zero rate VAT on domestic solar does apply in Northern Ireland and runs until 31 March 2027, after which it reverts to 5 per cent, per HMRC Notice 708/6. What no Northern Ireland scheme does is pay for domestic solar panels, which is set out in full on solar panel grants in NI and the Affordable Warmth Scheme.

How the solar tracker works

The tracker at Today's solar in NI takes the daily shortwave radiation total for seven towns from Open-Meteo and applies the standard PV yield model, which is radiation multiplied by system size in kWp multiplied by a performance ratio of 0.78, a conservative allowance for inverter, temperature, orientation, shading and soiling losses. Savings are valued at 33.5p per kWh, which is the tariff assumption the tracker is set to rather than your unit rate, so the money column moves if your own tariff is different, and every figure is an estimate for a representative install rather than a measurement of your roof.

Over the 225 measured days from 24 January to 5 September 2026, the model gives this.

The gap between the sunniest town and the dullest is 255 kWh across those 225 days on a 4kW system, so Newry runs about 13 per cent ahead of Derry. Anyone telling you a postcode inside Northern Ireland makes or breaks a solar install is selling something.

If you are an installer

If you fit solar in Northern Ireland and want to take quote requests, the application is at installer signup. What is required is current MCS certification, public liability cover of at least £2m, professional indemnity cover, at least two years trading and a Companies House registration. I read every application myself.

How to reach me

Email [email protected] and it comes to me. There is no call centre and no sales team behind it. If something on this site is wrong, send me the page and what is wrong with it, and I will correct it or take the page down.

More on the numbers themselves in solar panel costs in Northern Ireland, export payments in NI and whether solar is worth it here.