Key messages and learning

Mr Rajkiewicz started with the overall description of the financial scheme and the main outcomes. That includes the perspective of reduction of heating cost covered by households by 30%-40%, improvement of technical standard of 50 000-100 000 buildings, reduction of energy intensity of budgetary sector (schools, hospital offices), increase of Energy security through saving of 7-14 million Mg of coal, reduction of green-house gases emission and other negative environmental impact creation of several dozen of thousands of work places and facilitation social acceptance for marketization of energy prices. Thermal refurbishment Fund that was presented for the period of 1988-2008 provided a 25% subsidy to the loan extended for owners of buildings (condominiums, co-operatives, private ones, public – municipally owned, special social purposes with not limited ownership) and for owners of local district heating systems up to 11,6 MW – for up to 80% of total cost of thermal refurbishment measures (now the bonus is 16% of total cost, by >50% financing by loan).

The precondition is still to achieve at least 25% energy savings through measures to be financed, confirmed by the energy audit. Later with some adjustments the program had a special attention to old buildings owned mostly by condominiums, which are in bad technical condition, facilitation of financing through elimination of own equity requirement, thermal refurbishment will be implemented in 6 million m2 of residential multifamily buildings, renovation of buildings will be implemented during 2008-2012 respective of 150, 300, 900, 1400 and 1900 buildings, filling in the renovation gap estimated to 42 billion PLZ (approx. 10 billion €) and thermal refurbishment gap estimated to approx. 43 billion PLZ (approx. 10,2 billion €). The subsidy will be neutral for the budget in short term perspective, because of tax recovery.

The next step of the program provided 16% subsidy+5% p.p. for PV, to the total cost of thermal refurbishment financed by >50% loan for owners of buildings (condominiums, co-operatives, private ones, public – municipally owned, special social purposes with not limited ownership). The precondition is to achieve energy savings through measures to be financed, at least 25% confirmed by the energy audit and in the case of renovation of multifamily buildings constructed before 1961 the subsidy accounts to 15% of total renovation cost, by minimum of 10% of energy savings, confirmed by renovation audit. The main outcome of the program and the lesson learned is that the total number of applications for the thermal modernization bonus (PT) and for the renovation bonus (PT) (red line) has shown a downward trend since 2014. It is conditioned by the gradual depletion of the market potential in large towns, the implementation of thermal modernization and renovation in a less comprehensive manner without using the Fund’s resources by at least half of the building owners, as observed by BPIE. Also, it was because of the appearance from 2018 of competing financial products based on bank loans with reduced interest rates thanks to EU grants used in 6 out of 16 Polish regions. There is small (maximum 3%) percentage of applications for bonuses rejected in the course of their verification (black line), which means a good understanding of the Fund’s operation by applicants and high quality of energy audits. Since 2007, the number of accepted applications for a thermo-modernization bonus has been convergent with the number of bonuses granted (green lines), which means that the process of thermo- modernization of the building is closed during the calendar year, starting from the decision by the owner of the building to the completion of works. More detailed information can be found here: https://www.bpie.eu/publication/financing-building-energy-performance- improvement-in-poland-status-report/ .

As for the current development 2022 for multifamily and social buildings there is an increase of the thermomodernisation bonus to 26% TIC, special incentive for achieving the nZEB standard – 10% TIC, increase of renovation bonus to 25% TIC, separate grant for PV installation – 50% TIC and special grant for municipally owned social houses – up to 90% TIC. In general, there is a minimum 30% savings required. Thermomodernisation Fund served 2000 buildings, the EU funds used in form of grants for governmental public buildings within OP I&E, municipal public buildings within 16 ROPs and support of ESCO model (starting 2022). Additional there is EAA/Norway grants for municipal buildings. The cost of thermomodernisation for multifamily building is 250€/sqm and for public building about 500€/sqm. At the moment there are 12 banks operating with Thermomodernisation Fund. Long SPBT which is more than 20years is not attractive for ESCOs, that means the new scheme should reduce SPBT to 10 years, what makes it interesting for banks keen to finance ESCOs. Combination of loans with EU ELENA is very successful – 4 banks are doing this and other FI are looking for this opportunity. In addition, One-stop-shops for building of projects in municipalities in development.