The reform of the multi-billion government building subsidy has triggered a final sprint for expiring subsidies. The responsible Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (Bafa) received almost 300,000 individual applications in the almost three weeks between the announcement and the deadline for the last individual funding under the old law, as the authority reported on Wednesday in Eschborn near Frankfurt.
The total number of applications in the current year has thus risen to a record of more than 600,000. So far in 2022, around 5.9 billion euros have been approved and 1 billion euros have been paid out, Bafa said. 90 percent of the heat generators registered for the subsidies use renewable energies.
At the end of July, the federal government focused federal funding on existing buildings and decided on lower funding rates for individual measures such as heat pumps or thermal windows. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, annual subsidies of 13 to 14 billion euros are planned, of which around 12 to 13 billion euros are for renovations. In the future, climate measures on new buildings are to be largely funded via low-interest KfW loans.
According to Bafa, applicants must now be prepared for significantly longer processing times. Additional staff have already been hired and the application forms have been simplified. Every application will be processed.
