The rules changed in January 2026, and most of what you will read about solar panels in Cyprus was written before that. This guide covers what applies now — whether solar is still worth it, which panels suit this climate, how much electricity you will actually get where you live, what a system costs, and how the EAC process works.
For most buildings that use electricity during the day, yes. Cyprus has one of the strongest solar resources in Europe and electricity prices among the highest in the EU. That combination is what makes solar panels in Cyprus pay, and it has not changed.
What changed in 2026 is where the value comes from. It now comes from using your own production while it is being made, rather than from exporting it to the grid.
The practical answer depends on your household more than on your roof:
Already know what you want? Prices, specifications and current stock are on our buy photovoltaic panels in Cyprus page. This guide is for working out what to buy in the first place.
Worth thirty seconds if you have never had it explained, because the rest of this guide makes more sense afterwards.
Sunlight hits the cells in the panel and knocks electrons loose, which produces direct current — DC. Solar power panels do nothing else; there are no moving parts and nothing to switch on.
That DC runs down to an inverter, which converts it into the 230 V alternating current your building actually uses. From there the electricity feeds whatever is switched on in the house first. Only what is left over goes to the grid.
That last sentence is the important one. Panels for electricity always supply the building before they supply the grid, which is why using power during daylight is worth more than exporting it.
Two things changed at the end of 2025, and between them they altered what a system is worth.
Under net metering, a unit you exported came back to you as a unit later. One for one. That made solar panels in Cyprus easy to value — produce roughly what you use across a year and your bill fell close to nothing.
Since 1 January 2026, new systems go on net billing. Electricity you export earns a wholesale rate. Electricity you buy back in the evening costs the retail rate. The two are worked out separately on your bill.
This has not made solar a bad investment. It has changed what a good system looks like. Under net metering the aim was to produce as much as possible. Under net billing the aim is to use what you produce, while you are producing it.
In practice: running the pool pump, the water heater, the washing machine, the dishwasher and the air conditioning during daylight is now worth real money. So is a solar battery or a full energy storage system, because storage turns midday surplus into evening supply at retail value instead of selling it at wholesale.
The Photovoltaics for All scheme and the RES Fund grants for home solar closed to new applications on 31 December 2025. More on where that leaves things below.
Almost everything sold here is silicon. What separates one panel from another is the cell technology, and in this climate the difference that matters most is how much output each gives up as it heats.
Polycrystalline panels have largely left the market and are not worth considering for a new installation. Efficiency figures are typical of modules on sale, not laboratory records.
Every panel is rated at 25 °C in a laboratory. A roof in Cyprus in July sits far above that – the module itself commonly reaches 60 to 70 °C, well above the air temperature – and output falls as it warms.
At 65 °C, a panel at −0.24 %/°C is down about 9.6% from its rating. One at −0.35 %/°C is down 14%. That gap arrives in the middle of an August afternoon, exactly when the air conditioning is working hardest.
It is why high efficiency solar panels in Cyprus are usually N-type, and why we stock only HJT modules in our own range of photovoltaic panels in Cyprus.
Efficiency is how much of the light hitting a panel becomes electricity. A higher number does not mean more electricity overall — it means more from the same space.
So it matters when the roof is small or crowded. If you have room to spare, fitting one more panel does the same job for less money.
A bifacial panel has glass on both faces and can generate from light reflected off whatever is beneath it. How much it gains depends on the mounting rather than the panel — a ground mount or a tilted frame over a pale surface picks up real output, a panel clamped flat to dark tiles picks up very little.
The double-glass construction is worth having either way. A conventional panel has a plastic backsheet, and that is the part that yellows and delaminates after years of UV and salt air, particularly on coastal sites in Paphos, Limassol and Famagusta.
For this climate, N-type panels — HJT or TOPCon — with glass on both faces. The reason is heat rather than efficiency. A cheaper p-type PERC panel gives away around 14% of its rating on a 65 °C roof, an N-type HJT module gives away about 9.6%. Beyond that there is no single best panel, only the one that suits your roof.
The brand matters less than the specification behind it. Two panels from well-known manufacturers can behave very differently, and a lesser-known module with the right numbers will outperform a famous one with the wrong ones.
Judge a brand on four things rather than on the name:
We supply Akcome and Mingyang, both N-type HJT with double glass, and we are an authorised distributor for both — which is what lets us settle a warranty claim from Paphos rather than sending you to a manufacturer abroad. The full range, with specifications and prices, is on our photovoltaic panels page.
This is the number every savings calculation depends on, and it is usually quoted as a single national average. It should not be – output varies by around 10% between the coast and the hills.
Solar output is measured in kilowatt-hours per year for each kilowatt-peak installed:
Calculated with PVGIS, the European Commission’s solar database, for a south-facing array at 30° on a building. The clean column uses PVGIS default system losses of 14%; the dusty column adds five points for Saharan dust and long dry spells, which the default does not allow for in this climate.
Multiply your system size by the figure for your area. A 6 kW system in Larnaca, kept reasonably clean, comes to roughly 6 × 1,586 = 9,500 kWh a year. Compare that against your own consumption, which you can get by adding up a year of EAC bills.
Look at the second column. The difference between clean panels and dirty ones is around 90 to 100 kWh per kWp every year — on a 6 kW system that is over 500 kWh annually, lost to dust. It is the cheapest output anyone can buy back, and it is why panel cleaning pays for itself here in a way it does not in northern Europe.
Most do. These are the things that decide it, in the order they matter.
South-facing produces the most across a year. East–west produces less in total but spreads it across morning and evening rather than concentrating it at midday — which, under net billing, can suit a household that uses power early and late. North-facing slopes are not worth using.
The biggest destroyer of output, and the most commonly ignored. Panels wired in series perform to the weakest one in the string, so a chimney, a solar water heater, a satellite dish or a neighbour’s tree in low winter sun can drag down far more than the panel it covers.
It is fixable in the design — separate strings, or microinverters so each panel works alone — but only if someone has actually looked at the roof through the day.
If the roof has under ten years left in it, deal with that first. Removing and refitting an array to replace the roof underneath is a cost nobody budgets for.
The constraint on a Cyprus roof is usually clutter rather than area. Solar water heaters, vents, chimneys and dishes all take room and cast shade. A shorter panel sometimes fits where a bigger one will not.
Common here and perfectly workable, on tilted frames. Bear in mind that rows have to be spaced far enough apart not to shade each other, so a flat roof needs considerably more area than the panels themselves occupy.
Harder, but not impossible. The roof is usually common property, so you need the agreement of the management committee, and the connection has to be arranged against your own meter. Worth asking early rather than late.
The island is small, but conditions are not uniform. What changes between one city and the next is output, salt exposure, roof construction and when the building actually uses power — and all four change the right specification.
The hottest summers on the island and no sea breeze to carry heat off a roof, so module temperature runs higher here than anywhere else. That makes the temperature coefficient the specification that matters most, and it is where a cheap PERC panel costs you the most. Output is also the lowest of the main cities at around 1,548 kWh per kWp. Homes across Strovolos, Latsia, Aglantzia and Lakatamia, and warehouse roofs out on the Mesaoria plain.
The highest output of any district we measure, at roughly 1,643 kWh per kWp. Two very different jobs sit side by side here: coastal apartments and villas at Germasogeia, Agios Tychonas and Amathus, where salt air rules out plastic backsheets, and ground mounts up in the Krassochoria wine villages. Apartment blocks need the roof allocation settled before anything else.
Flat concrete roofs are common at Oroklini, Livadia, Pyla and Perivolia, which suits tilted frames — one of the few situations in Cyprus where a bifacial panel earns real output from its rear face. Remember that tilted rows need spacing, so a flat roof needs more area than the panels themselves occupy. Around 1,586 kWh per kWp.
Our own district, and where our showroom is. Around 1,637 kWh per kWp. Coastal exposure at Chloraka, Kissonerga, Peyia and Polis makes double-glass construction the sensible default, and the mix of modern villas and older stone properties means roof structure varies more here than the numbers suggest. Worth an early look at the roof itself rather than just its orientation.
Around 1,641 kWh per kWp, effectively tied with Limassol. The distinctive thing here is timing: hotels and apartments at Ayia Napa, Protaras and Paralimni peak in exactly the months production peaks, which is the best possible match under net billing. Inland, the Kokkinochoria farms run irrigation through the hottest hours, which is the same story for the same reason.
Around 1,505 kWh per kWp — lower than the coast, and winter performance matters more than peak summer for stone houses and agritourism properties at Pano Platres, Arsos, Agros and Vavatsinia. Access for delivery and installation needs planning earlier than it does elsewhere.
You can see systems we have built around the island on our solar installations page.
Most residential solar panels in Cyprus end up as a 5 to 8 kW system, which is roughly 11 to 20 panels depending on wattage. But the average is not the answer — yours comes from your bills.
The change most people miss. Under net metering, home PV panels were sized to match total annual consumption. Under net billing, sizing to match daytime consumption is the starting point, and anything above that is a separate decision about export value and storage. A system sized the old way can be larger — and more expensive — than it needs to be.
A typical home system in Cyprus works out around €1,400 to €1,700 per kW installed. That puts a 5 kW system near €7,200–€8,200 and a 10 kW system near €14,000–€15,500, complete.
The rate falls as the system gets bigger, because the fixed costs — the EAC application, scaffolding, a day of labour — spread across more panels.
A grid-tied residential system is normally quoted as a complete installation: panels, inverter, mounting frames, cabling and protection, the EAC application and labour.
Production uses 1,500 to 1,640 kWh per kWp, the band across the districts above. Costs vary with roof type, access and equipment.
Buying components rather than an installation? Current solar panel prices, inverters and mounting frames are listed in the shop.
Under net metering it was easy to state, because every exported unit came back at full value. Under net billing it depends on how much of your own production you use during the day. Two households with the same 6 kW system can be years apart.
Anyone quoting a single payback figure for solar panels in Cyprus without asking about your daily routine is guessing.
As of beggining of September 2026, no residential grant scheme is open for applications. The Photovoltaics for All scheme and the RES Fund grants for home solar closed to new applications on 31 December 2025.
Residential solar grants in Cyprus are administered by the RES & Energy Conservation Fund, and its website is where any new scheme appears first.
A battery subsidy tied to the new net billing framework has been announced in principle. Battery sizes and grant amounts were expected, but the scheme has not launched.
These schemes reopen and change. Rather than repeat figures here that may be out of date by the time you read them, we keep the current position on our net billing and grants page, and we will tell you where things stand when you get in touch.
Weigh it against the cost of waiting. A system installed now starts saving now, and electricity bought from the grid in the meantime is money spent rather than deferred. Whether waiting makes sense depends on how much the eventual grant turns out to be worth against a year or more of full-price electricity — and since the scheme has not been published, nobody can tell you that with confidence.
A grid-connected and hybrid systems need approval from the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), and the finished installation must be certified by a licensed electrician. A competent installer handles all of it — you should not be filling in forms yourself.
If you would rather someone handled the whole thing, that is what our solar panels installation service does, across Paphos, Limassol, Nicosia, Larnaca and Famagusta.
The equipment matters less than most people expect and the installation matters more. A good panel badly mounted will underperform a modest panel fitted properly. Cyprus solar panel suppliers vary more in the second than the first.
Where one quote comes in well below the others, the difference is usually in the components, the mounting hardware or the scope of work. Ask for an itemised breakdown with makes and models and compare line by line. Sometimes the cheap quote is genuinely good value. Sometimes it is a smaller system, or one built from equipment nobody will support in ten years.
There is very little to do. No moving parts, nothing to service annually. But two things need attention here that would not in a wetter climate.
Saharan dust and long dry spells mean the glass gets dirty and stays dirty. As the table above shows, the cost is around 90 to 100 kWh per kWp a year. Rain does some of the work in winter; through the summer it does none. Solar panels cleaning is the cheapest output you can recover.
Without it, a fault can run for months before anyone notices — an inverter fault, a failed string, a bird’s nest. Monitoring turns that into an alert instead of a surprise on a bill.
The panels are the most durable part. Good modules carry a power warranty of 25 to 30 years and should still be producing most of their rated output at the end of it. The inverter is usually the first thing to need replacing, typically after 10 to 15 years — worth knowing when you compare quotes, because it is a real future cost. Periodic maintenance catches the things that shorten equipment life here: heat, dust and salt.
Contact CGP Solar today for a free, no-obligation consultation.
Tell us where the property is and we will arrange a visit. You will get back a panel type, a system size and an itemised price. No charge, and no obligation.
FAQ’s
Most Cyprus homes end up with 5 to 8 kW, which is roughly 11 to 20 panels depending on wattage.
The right number comes from your electricity consumption, not from the size of your roof. Add up a year of EAC bills for your annual kWh, then work back from how much of it you use during daylight.
The panels are the most durable part of the system. Good modules carry a power warranty of 25 to 30 years and should still be producing most of their rated output at the end of it.
The inverter usually needs replacing first, typically after 10 to 15 years. Heat and dust shorten the life of poorly built equipment faster here than in northern Europe, which is why build quality matters more in Cyprus than the price difference suggests.
Absolutely—modern PV systems still capture diffused sunlight. In coastal areas like Paphos, output remains strong year-round.
Most rooftop residential systems do not. Listed buildings, some protected zones and larger ground-mounted arrays can.
EAC approval for the grid connection is needed in every case, and the finished installation must be certified by a licensed electrician. Your installer should handle both.
Solar panels require very little maintenance. The most important thing is to keep them clean from dust and dirt to ensure they operate at peak efficiency.
Most roofs in Cyprus can support solar panels. Our engineers conduct a thorough on-site assessment to evaluate your roof’s structural integrity, orientation, and angle to ensure maximum sunlight exposure and a safe, effective installation.
Not to have a working system. Under net billing a battery is worth more than it used to be, because it lets you use midday surplus in the evening at retail value instead of exporting it at wholesale.
Whether it pays for itself depends on your consumption pattern and the price of storage when you buy. It can be added later, provided the inverter was chosen with that in mind.
Professional installation by certified technicians ensures no roof damage. Modern mounting systems are designed to work with various roof types and include proper waterproofing. Many installations actually protect the covered roof area from weather exposure.
Solar panels typically increase property value and transfer with the property sale. The EAC connection and any remaining warranties need transferring as part of the sale, so mention the system to your lawyer early rather than late.
The installation itself is usually one to two days for a domestic system. The EAC application and the meter change either side of it set the timeline, and they depend on the EAC rather than on the installer.
