The acceptance of applications for "green subsidies" has ended

Prague - Today at noon, the deadline for submitting applications for grants from the New Green Savings program has ended. The Ministry of the Environment (MŽP) extended the acceptance period until the end of the year because hundreds of millions of crowns still remained in the program in the autumn. The program is expected to reopen next spring, and support should be aimed not only at family houses but also at apartment buildings, said ministry spokesperson Petra Roubíčková to ČTK today.
    "The system closed today and applications will be gradually evaluated," she stated. The amount of money that will remain and be transferred to next year will be published by the State Environment Fund in the coming days.
    A total of 1.9 billion crowns was prepared for this year. However, experts estimated during the autumn that up to a billion could be left in the program. By the end of November, the fund had recorded more than 3,700 applications for nearly 780 million.
    Nevertheless, spokesperson Roubíčková considers the program successful. "Before the end of the October deadline, we noted a significant increase in the number of applications. This interest has practically continued continuously," she claims.
    In July, the fund simplified conditions, for example, by reducing the amount of documentation required for applications and increasing support for project preparation. They also offered free advisory services. Builders and other specialists welcomed this, interest in the program increased, and specialists reportedly struggled to process the documentation necessary for accepting applications.
    The New Green Savings program focused on the insulation of family homes, the replacement of windows and doors, the construction of so-called passive houses, and the replacement of old boilers with new energy-efficient ones using biomass or gas, heat pumps, and the installation of solar panels. People could apply for subsidies for measures that were initiated after January 1, 2013.
    A month ago, Leo Steiner, the deputy director of the fund, stated that a new call for apartment buildings in the NZÚ program should be announced around March 2015 and will need to be coordinated with other programs. 1.6 billion crowns should be prepared, of which half could go to apartment buildings. However, this was a proposal that must be approved by the government.
    The fund wants to support the reduction of energy demands of existing buildings, which will only be available for buildings located in Prague. Support for energy-efficient renovations of buildings from the planned Integrated Regional Operational Program (IROP) does not apply to it.