The grants in the Green Savings program may be several percent lower

Prague - The Ministry of the Environment is considering reducing subsidies in the Green Savings insulation program by several percentage points in order to strengthen the administration associated with the control of thousands of applications. So far, applicants have received an average of two-thirds of the total investment from the state. The ministry, led since Monday by Minister Tomáš Chalupa, also informed ČTK today that the State Environmental Fund (SFŽP) will distribute subsidies to applicants from last summer by the end of March.
    Funds will be disbursed for 17,000 applications totaling over five billion crowns, which were approved on September 30, said ministry spokesperson Michaela Jendeková to ČTK. The Green Savings program is also continuing to check the submitted applications, with 9,000 still to be verified; in December of last year, 5,000 applications were reviewed, the spokesperson noted.
    The Ministry of the Environment and the SFŽP are facing criticism from applicants for support who are dissatisfied with the prolonged handling of applications. According to the first Deputy Minister Rut Bízková, the fund has been trying to process applications as quickly as possible from the beginning. "In the last week before the program was suspended, however, we received a total of 10,425 applications, which is significantly more than the technical and personnel capacity of the SFŽP. In comparison, the fund only accepted 3,100 applications throughout the entire year of 2009," Bízková stated.
    In order to satisfy all applicants for subsidies who submitted their applications in accordance with the conditions of the program, the Ministry of the Environment is considering a reduction of the subsidy by a few percentage points. Currently, negotiations are ongoing with buyers of emission credits to potentially lower the current average level of support, which ranges from 60 to 65 percent.
    As of today, the Green Savings program has recorded 75,000 applications, of which 37,000 have been approved. In 2010, support was disbursed amounting to 1.999 billion crowns, while in 2009 it was 3.287 billion crowns. So far, a total of two billion crowns has been allocated throughout the entire program duration.
    The Green Savings program was launched in April 2009 and is intended to support energy savings and the use of renewable energy sources in residential buildings. It is financed from the sale of emission credits, from which the ministry has thus far obtained 19.6 billion crowns.