Banks suspended issuing EE loans for residential energy efficiency improvements

July 7, 2016

Starting from July 6, banks suspended EE loans which were issued for natural persons for procurement of EE materials and equipment and for which 30% of the loan was compensated by the state, since the budget of the corresponding government program will cover only the loans issued by July 5. This was reported by the Press Service of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine (SAEE).

Homeowners associations and Housing Building Cooperatives will still receive EE loans for procurement of energy efficient materials and equipment.

The SAEE has already prepared the draft of a corresponding Government resolution according to which additional budget funds will be allocated for compensations for EE loans issued for procurement of EE materials and equipment. The draft was sent to the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine for concurrence.  

According to the SAEE, 893.8 million UAH was earmarked in state budget 2016 for compensations under the “warm” loans program (3 times as high as in the budget 2015).

The SAEE states that during 6 months of 2016 Ukrainians received almost 954 million UAH as “warm” loans; and 907 million UAH were issued as loans for procurement of EE materials and equipment, for which 30% of the loan is reimbursed by the state and 70% are compensated for subsidy recipients.

According to UNIAN reports, in June 2016, 21 180 EE loan applications were registered for the total of 350 million UAH. Since the start of the government “warm” loans program, the total of 2.2 billion UAH of EE loans was issued.

In early April 2015, the Government adopted the program according to which 20-40% of loans attracted for EE measures should be compensated (20% of EE loan - but not more than 12 000 UAH - for replacement of gas-fired boilers; 30% of EE loan – but not more than 14 000 UAH – for procurement of EE materials and equipment; 40% of EE loan principal – but not more than 14 000 UAH – for HOAs and Housing Building Cooperatives – for procurement of EE materials and equipment). The budget of the “warm” loans program was 1.57 billion UAH. In February 2016, the Government extended the “warm” loans program to 2016 and earmarked 900 million UAH for the extended program.

Source: UNIAN