Smart energy management Ireland 2026: how to connect your solar, EV, battery and heat pump

🔄 Last verified: February 2026 — product availability and pricing confirmed from De Energy Hub's smart energy directory. Always verify with Irish installers and suppliers before purchasing.

The home energy revolution in Ireland has happened in components. Solar panels went in first, then an EV charger, then a heat pump as the SEAI grants made each worthwhile in sequence. The result, in a growing number of Irish homes, is three significant investments sitting side by side — genuinely useful individually, but missing the compounding benefit that comes from coordinating them.

Smart energy management — the devices and systems that allow your solar, battery, EV charger and heat pump to share information and act on it — is the layer that most guides skip over. It is also the layer with the most confusing product landscape: HEMS, diverters, CT clamps, OpenTherm, tariff scheduling. This guide cuts through that and explains what each category does, which products are available in Ireland, and the order in which it makes sense to build this up.

Four categories, four different jobs

Before looking at specific products, it helps to understand what the four categories of smart energy management actually do — because they are not interchangeable, and most homes need different ones at different stages.

Layer 1: Solar diverters — the fastest payback in home energy

If you have solar panels and a hot water cylinder, a solar diverter should be your first smart energy purchase. The payback is typically 10–18 months, the installation is straightforward, and the benefit is immediate and tangible — measurably less money spent on electricity for heating water.

The mechanism is simple. A clip-on current transformer (CT clamp) sits on your meter's live cable and reads the direction and magnitude of current flow. When your solar is generating more than the house needs, current flows toward the grid. The diverter detects this and switches your immersion element on — absorbing that surplus generation locally instead of exporting it at €0.185/kWh. When demand in the house rises again and the surplus disappears, the diverter backs off. It is entirely automatic, requires no input once installed, and works with any solar installation regardless of inverter brand.

Three diverters are widely available and installed by Irish solar contractors:

Product	Price	Max load	App	Best for
myenergi Eddi	~€260	3.68kW	Yes (myenergi)	Most features, two outputs, ecosystem integration
Solar iBoost+	~€225	3.0kW	No — fully automatic	Simple, no configuration, Buddy display included
Solic 200	~€120	3.0kW	No	Lowest cost, no frills, LED indicator only

The myenergi Eddi is Ireland's most widely installed solar diverter and earns that position. It supports two heating outputs in priority order — surplus goes to the immersion first, then to a secondary load (underfloor heating, a towel rail) with any remaining surplus. The app provides scheduling, boost timers and export/consumption data. Critically, when used alongside the myenergi Hub and a Zappi EV charger, the Eddi shares real-time generation data with the charger — the two devices coordinate so that available solar is allocated between hot water and EV charging based on which has more remaining capacity.

The Solar iBoost+ is the right choice if you want no configuration whatsoever. No app, no pairing, no programming. It comes with a wireless Buddy display unit that shows accumulated hot water energy. Install it, connect it to the immersion, and it works. For homeowners who find app-managed devices frustrating, this is genuinely the better choice despite its slightly lower feature count.

The Solic 200 is the entry-level option — no display, no app, purely automatic, LED indicator only. At €120 it has the fastest payback of anything in this guide. For a homeowner who simply wants the cheapest way to stop exporting surplus solar at the export rate while their immersion runs on expensive grid electricity, it does the job.

Layer 2: Energy monitors — visibility before control

An energy monitor on its own does not save money directly — it shows you where money is being lost. That is its value. Homes without monitoring often discover that their solar system is not performing as expected, that a particular appliance is drawing significant standby power, or that their battery is cycling in ways that suggest incorrect configuration. The monitor is the diagnostic layer.

Three distinct approaches are available in Ireland:

CT clamp monitors (Shelly EM, Shelly Pro 3EM) clip onto the main cable in your consumer unit and measure import and export in real time. The Shelly EM at €35 is the most affordable whole-home monitor in the Irish market — two clamp channels mean you can measure both total consumption and solar generation simultaneously. The Pro 3EM (€95) is the three-phase version used by professional installers. Both integrate with Home Assistant and many other automation platforms via open APIs. The Shelly EM is a self-install for confident DIYers; the Pro 3EM requires an electrician.

Smart meter readers (Hildebrand Glow CAD) take a completely different approach. Rather than adding hardware to your consumer unit, the Glow plugs into a power socket and connects wirelessly to the Home Area Network (HAN) port on your ESBN smart meter. Over 1.4 million Irish homes now have ESBN smart meters installed — if yours is one of them, the Glow reads live consumption and tariff data in real time at zero installation cost. At €45 and plug-and-play installation, it is the lowest-friction monitoring option available. The limitation: it reads grid import/export but does not measure solar generation separately. For a home with both solar and a smart meter, pair it with a Shelly EM for the full picture.

AI device detection (Sense) works at a fundamentally different level. The Sense monitor samples your electrical panel one million times per second and uses machine learning to identify individual appliances — fridge, EV charger, washing machine, heat pump — from their electrical signature, without fitting anything on individual circuits. It takes 2–4 weeks to fully learn a home and costs €270, with electrician installation required. It is the right tool for homeowners who want to understand exactly which devices are responsible for their electricity bill, not just the total.

Monitor	Price	How it works	Solar input	Install
Shelly EM	€35	2× CT clamps on live cables	Yes (2nd channel)	DIY possible
Shelly Pro 3EM	€95	3-phase CT clamps, DIN rail	Yes	Electrician required
Hildebrand Glow CAD	€45	Reads ESBN smart meter HAN port	No (grid only)	Plug-and-play
Sense Home Monitor	€270	AI appliance detection at 1MHz	Optional add-on	Electrician required

Layer 3: Smart thermostats — OpenTherm matters more than most guides mention

A smart thermostat controls your heating system more intelligently than a standard programmable unit — geofencing starts heating when you are on the way home, weather adaptation adjusts the schedule based on forecast temperatures, and app control means you can override the schedule from anywhere. For a boiler home, these features deliver savings of around 15–25% on heating bills. For a heat pump home, there is an additional factor that most buyers overlook: OpenTherm modulation.

Standard heating controls work in on/off fashion — the thermostat calls for heat, the heat pump or boiler fires at full capacity until the target temperature is reached, then stops. This cycling behaviour is inefficient for heat pumps, which perform best running continuously at a lower output rather than repeatedly starting at full load. OpenTherm is a communication protocol that allows a compatible thermostat to send the heat pump a target flow temperature rather than an on/off signal — the heat pump modulates its output to maintain that temperature precisely. The efficiency gain is genuine and measurable: typically 10–15% better seasonal performance versus on/off control.

The Tado Smart Thermostat V3+ (€130) is Ireland's most popular smart thermostat and the go-to recommendation for heat pump homes. It supports OpenTherm, has multi-zone capability via add-on radiator valves, and the geofencing — which starts heating as you approach home — is particularly effective for heat pump homes where pre-heating the fabric of the building takes longer than a boiler. An optional AI scheduling subscription (€4/month) adds more sophisticated learning, though the base scheduling is competent without it. SEAI registered, which means it can be included in home energy upgrade applications.

The Honeywell Home T6R (€120) is the professional installer's default choice in Ireland — it appears on more SEAI heat pump installations than any other thermostat, partly because it is SEAI registered and partly because Irish heating contractors have long familiarity with it. It supports OpenTherm, is wireless (battery-powered head, wired receiver at the heat pump), and is available through most Irish heating wholesalers. It does not have geofencing or weather adaptation — those features belong to the Tado. What it has is proven reliability and widespread Irish installer support.

Thermostat	Price	OpenTherm	Geofencing	SEAI listed	Best for
Tado V3+	€130	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	Heat pump homes — full feature set
Honeywell T6R	€120	✅ Yes	No	✅ Yes	Heat pump + boiler — installer standard
Google Nest 4th Gen	€240	❌ No	✅ Yes	No	Boiler homes — Google ecosystem only
Hive Active Heating 2	€160	❌ No	✅ Yes	No	Boiler homes — multi-zone + hot water

Layer 4: HEMS — when the whole system thinks together

A Home Energy Management System is the coordination layer that sits above individual devices and makes decisions across the whole system. Where a solar diverter asks "is there surplus energy for the immersion?", a HEMS asks "given the current tariff, the battery state, the EV's charge level, the heat pump schedule and the weather forecast — what is the optimal allocation of this solar generation for the next 24 hours?" The difference in sophistication is significant, and so is the difference in cost and complexity.

The critical thing to understand before investing in a HEMS: most HEMS are tied to a specific inverter ecosystem. They are not standalone, brand-agnostic products. If your solar installation uses a Huawei SUN2000 inverter, the FusionHome HEMS is built in and included at no extra cost. If your solar uses a SolarEdge inverter, the SolarEdge ecosystem is what integrates. The only genuinely inverter-agnostic option in the Irish market is the myenergi Hub and ecosystem — which works with any solar installation but coordinates its own Zappi, Eddi and Libbi devices.

myenergi Hub and Ecosystem — the inverter-agnostic option

The myenergi approach is modular and additive. Each device — the Zappi EV charger, the Eddi solar diverter, the Libbi home battery — works independently but gains coordination capability when connected via the myenergi Hub (€75). The Hub allows all three devices to share real-time generation data: the Zappi knows what the Eddi is using, the Eddi knows what the Zappi is taking, and both throttle automatically to maximise self-consumption without exceeding available surplus.

This is Ireland's most popular smart energy ecosystem for good reason. It works with any solar inverter, grows incrementally (you can start with just a Zappi and add the Hub and Eddi later), and has an open API that allows integration with Home Assistant and third-party platforms. The Libbi home battery (from €2,000) completes the ecosystem. The limitation: it does not natively integrate with heat pumps, and its coordination is limited to the myenergi device family.

Huawei FusionHome — built-in, no extra cost

If your solar installation uses a Huawei SUN2000 inverter, the FusionHome intelligent energy management platform is built in — no additional hardware purchase, no separate subscription. The FusionSolar app provides per-minute monitoring, AI charge/discharge scheduling, tariff price optimisation (it learns your tariff and schedules battery charge/discharge to minimise cost), and integration with the Huawei EV charger and Luna2000 battery. The AI scheduler looks 24 hours ahead using weather forecasts and consumption patterns to determine the optimal strategy for that day.

The constraint is absolute: FusionHome only works within the Huawei ecosystem. Huawei inverter, Huawei battery, Huawei EV charger — if any component is from another brand, the integration breaks. For homeowners building a Huawei system from scratch, it is the most capable AI energy management available in Ireland at this price point (effectively free, since it comes with the inverter). For homes with mixed-brand systems, it is not relevant.

GivEnergy GivHub with GivAI — fully autonomous scheduling

GivEnergy's approach centres on GivAI — an AI scheduler that observes your household's consumption patterns over 7–14 days and automatically creates an optimised schedule without any manual programming. It then adjusts that schedule continuously as it learns more. Battery charge and discharge, solar allocation, tariff management — all handled without user input. For homeowners who want the system to simply run itself, this is the most hands-off option.

The GivHub (€150) requires a GivEnergy inverter and battery — it does not work with other hardware. An open API enables integration with Home Assistant and third-party EV chargers. Strong Irish distributor network through approved installers.

Sigenergy SigenStor — the all-in-one system

Sigenergy takes a different architectural approach: rather than coordinating separate devices, the SigenStor integrates the inverter, battery management system and a built-in EV charger into a single unit managed by one controller. There is no separate HEMS to configure — it is all one system. The AI dispatcher analyses tariff data 24 hours ahead and optimises charge/export accordingly. Available in single-phase and three-phase configurations.

The SigenStor is most compelling for new builds or full home energy retrofits where the entire system is being installed at once. The all-in-one approach reduces installation complexity and eliminates the compatibility questions that arise when combining separate brands. The trade-off is that you are committed to the Sigenergy ecosystem for all components.

HEMS	Works with	AI scheduling	EV integration	Cost
myenergi Hub	Any inverter + myenergi devices	Tariff scheduling	✅ Zappi	€75 (Hub only)
Huawei FusionHome	Huawei ecosystem only	✅ AI (24h ahead)	✅ Huawei charger	Free (built-in)
GivEnergy GivHub	GivEnergy ecosystem only	✅ GivAI auto-learn	Via open API	€150 (Hub only)
Sigenergy SigenStor	Sigenergy ecosystem only	✅ AI (24h ahead)	✅ Built-in charger	~€8,500 (system)

The inverter ecosystem trap

The single most important thing to understand before purchasing any HEMS is this: your inverter brand largely determines your HEMS options. If you already have solar installed, your inverter brand is fixed. It is not worth replacing a functional inverter to access a different HEMS platform — the economics do not work. Instead, identify which HEMS options are compatible with your existing inverter and work within that constraint.

The myenergi ecosystem is the only genuinely inverter-agnostic option for coordinating an EV charger and solar diverter — it installs alongside any solar system without requiring a specific inverter brand. If you want to add EV and hot water coordination to an existing solar installation regardless of who made your inverter, the myenergi path is the right one. If you are installing solar for the first time and want the most capable AI energy management, choosing an inverter brand with a strong built-in HEMS (Huawei or GivEnergy) is worth considering from the outset.

How a fully connected system works on a good summer day

The value of coordination becomes clearest in a concrete example. A home with solar panels, a myenergi Hub, an Eddi diverter, a Zappi EV charger, and a Tado thermostat controlling a heat pump. June morning, good forecast.

By 8am, the solar is generating 1.5kW — enough to run the house but not yet surplus. The Tado has pre-heated the house from 6am using cheap overnight rate electricity, so the heat pump is idle. By 9am, generation reaches 3kW and the house is drawing 0.8kW — 2.2kW surplus. The Eddi detects this and fires the immersion, taking 2kW. By 11am, generation is 4kW, the house draws 1kW and the Eddi has the cylinder fully hot. 3kW of surplus now flows to the Zappi, which begins charging the car from solar only. By 2pm, peak generation at 4.5kW — the car is taking the full surplus charge. By 5pm, generation falls below the Zappi's minimum 1.4kW threshold and charging stops. The car has added 15–18kWh of range from midday sunshine. The cylinder is hot. The battery — if present — has taken the late afternoon surplus. The house has drawn very little from the grid all day.

None of that required any manual intervention. That is what the coordination layer delivers.

How to build this up — start simple, not complete

The temptation when reading a guide like this is to plan the full system before doing anything. Resist it. The full system is a valid destination, but starting with a HEMS before you understand your home's consumption patterns, or fitting a diverter before you have solar, makes no sense. Here is the logical sequence for most Irish homes:

1. Get solar installed first — with whatever inverter gives you the best value from an SEAI-registered installer. Don't overbuild the system trying to accommodate a HEMS you haven't chosen yet.
2. Add a solar diverter — the Eddi, iBoost+ or Solic 200 depending on budget and desired features. Do this within the first year of solar ownership. It is the fastest payback of anything in this guide.
3. Add an energy monitor — a Shelly EM or the Glow CAD if you have a smart meter. Use it for 3–6 months to understand your actual consumption patterns before making any further purchases.
4. Upgrade your thermostat — if you have a heat pump and no smart thermostat, this is overdue. Tado V3+ or Honeywell T6R with OpenTherm.
5. Add EV charger coordination — if you have or plan an EV, a Zappi EV charger paired with the existing Eddi and a myenergi Hub adds solar-aware EV charging at relatively low incremental cost.
6. Consider a battery — once you have 6–12 months of monitoring data showing consistent midday surplus that you are exporting rather than using. The battery case is stronger when you can quantify the surplus you are currently losing.

Each step makes financial sense independently. The compounding benefit builds as more pieces connect. But starting at step six without steps one through five is a common and expensive mistake.

Information verified against SEAI.ie and current Irish market data — April 2026. Always confirm grant amounts and eligibility at seai.ie before purchasing.

✍️ David, De Energy Hub