The ministries are starting to prepare the successor to the Green Savings program

Prague - Although the Green Savings subsidy program ends this year, a successor is already beginning to take shape at the Ministry of the Environment and Regional Development. It is certain that the current subsidy system will be significantly streamlined, and low-interest loans will be given a stronger role. The application process for support is expected to be easier. Jana Marešová, spokesperson for the State Fund for Housing Development (SFRB), and Matyáš Vitík, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment (MŽP), stated this in response to a query from ČTK.
     "Support in the successor program to Green Savings will not be as generous as in the current program, where the subsidy was 67 percent of costs, but will be a combination of a loan and a non-repayable bonus, which according to our preliminary estimates could be around 25 percent of costs," said Vitík.
     Loans instead of subsidies, according to the housing fund, will not be a change for the worse, but rather the opposite. "The shift from non-repayable subsidies to low-interest loans means that in the future, support will no longer pertain only to a chosen few who received subsidies. On the contrary, support will be provided repeatedly from repaid loans to other interested parties," mentioned the SFRB spokesperson.
     The cost of loans, according to the housing fund's vision, would have an interest rate starting from two percent, but it would not change throughout the repayment period, which could be up to 30 years. People could cover up to 90 percent of costs for energy-saving measures with this loan.
     The new program is expected to allow both partial interventions in properties and comprehensive modernizations focused on energy savings and improving housing quality, according to the SFRB. "In practice, this means that the investment portion aimed at reducing energy consumption will be financed from revenues from emission allowances, while repairs to the static and construction parts of buildings, such as elevators, balconies, roofs, and similar, will be covered by SFRB funds," the fund's spokesperson said.
     The MŽP spokesperson Matyáš Vitík denied, however, that this would mean a shift of part of the money obtained from selling allowances to the housing fund. "The aim is to achieve mutual synergy, the maximum possible joint administration, and at the same time eliminate duplication. However, the approach does not anticipate that the Ministry of Regional Development would use part of the revenues from emission allowances," the spokesperson of the Ministry of the Environment told ČTK.
     The SFRB wants to obtain money for providing advantageous loans from European sources, such as from the European project for city development, Jessica. The State Housing Fund aims to launch a pilot project in 2013, which will offer around 600 million crowns in the form of low-interest loans for this purpose. In subsequent years, the fund would like to have around two billion crowns annually for this support.
     In contrast, the State Environmental Fund mainly relies on money from the future sale of emission allowances, which has also financed the ending Green Savings program this year. The new program should be established by the end of next year.
     According to the government-approved draft law, the Environmental Fund could obtain around 40 billion crowns from the sale of emission allowances over the next seven years. Another approximately 40 billion would go into the state budget.