NKÚ will verify the funds for reducing energy consumption in apartment buildings

Prague - The Supreme Audit Office will investigate the money spent on reducing the energy intensity of residential buildings. This will involve measures supported by the Integrated Regional Operational Program and the New Green Savings program. The audit will begin in July and is expected to last until May next year. Auditors will head to the Centre for Regional Development of the Czech Republic, the State Environmental Fund, and the Ministry of Regional Development. The Supreme Audit Office announced this on its website.

The New Green Savings program focuses on energy savings in residential buildings. It supports, for example, renovations of family and apartment buildings, such as insulation of façades or ceilings, construction of passive houses, or solar thermal and photovoltaic systems and green roofs. The program primarily uses funds from the proceeds of emissions allowance auctions.

The Supreme Audit Office will be interested in how the three mentioned institutions proceeded in allocating funds from both programs. Whether they distributed the money according to the rules, what impact the support had, and whether it was directed where it was intended, said NKÚ spokesperson Jana Gabrielová to ČTK.

"In reducing energy intensity, the Czech Republic has long struggled with problems and is failing to meet national targets that follow the Europe 2020 strategy," said the spokesperson. She pointed to the findings of an audit from 2017, which concerned the use of European funds to achieve permanent energy savings in industry. "In that audit, we found that energy savings were minimal by the end of 2017. The reasons included slow fund disbursement, long approval times for subsidy applications, and also a lack of interest in support," stated the spokesperson.

Auditors also looked into what costs accompany energy savings in that previous audit. "For the audited projects, it was found that saving one gigajoule of energy cost approximately 2200 crowns. Originally, it was expected that achieving this amount of energy savings should be possible for 1000 crowns," previously reported the Supreme Audit Office.

"In addition to industry, it is difficult to achieve energy savings in the housing sector as well. Therefore, our currently initiated audit will focus specifically on support for this area," added spokesperson Gabrielová.