Czech renewable energy grant applications fall slightly to 66.417 in first half, with solar in highest demand

Czechs submitted 66.417 applications for grants to install renewable energy sources in the first half of this year. That is 13 percent fewer than a year earlier, but still 60 percent of last year’s total demand for grants. The fluctuations are mainly due to changes in grant conditions. Demand is traditionally highest for solar power plants, but compared with last year, interest has risen most sharply in boilers and other biomass-fired sources. This is according to statistics from the State Environmental Fund (SFŽP).

„We are seeing a significant increase in interest from apartment buildings. Interest among individual households has remained fairly steady. Fluctuations of ten or twenty percent up or down are mainly due to changes in grant conditions, which lead to alternating periods of high interest and a certain cooling-off, followed by gradual stabilisation,“ said Štěpán Chalupa, chairman of the Chamber of Renewable Energy Sources.

Last year’s statistics were slightly distorted, for example, by the suspension of applications before the summer holidays, which led to a multiplication in the number of applications submitted in June and, consequently, some distortion.

Interest could rise again in the coming months, he said. In this context, he highlighted the launch of electricity sharing in August. „This will help better align electricity consumption with its generation, which in turn will help the grid. We need to provide as much incentive as possible for flexibility in consumption, not only through grant schemes but also, to a greater extent, through tariff design, for example. The ban on polluting boilers and the approaching heating season are likely to further boost demand for wood-fired boilers and stoves,“ Chalupa said.

In the first half of the year, photovoltaics once again accounted for the largest share of all applications. More than 53,000 applications were submitted for grants for solar installations. Of these, 685 were for solar installations in apartment buildings. „The price of solar plants has fallen by 20 percent over the past year, and in some cases by as much as 25 percent, due to overflowing warehouses at the largest manufacturers in Asia. I recommend that anyone considering photovoltaics not hesitate,“ said Aleš Hradecký, head of the Guild of Energy Storage and Photovoltaics, commenting on the current market situation.

A total of 8202 people applied for a grant for a heat pump. „The increase in regulated electricity charges and currently cheap gas have cooled household interest to some extent. However, this is a short-term situation, and the price of gas will rise, partly because of emissions allowances,“ noted Jan Potůcký, director of the Association for the Use of Heat Pumps.

While applications for photovoltaics and heat pumps are slightly down compared with the first half of last year, authorities have received more applications for grants to install boilers or other local biomass heating sources than they did in the whole of last year. So far this year, there have been 3446 applications for boiler grants. According to Libor Soukup, president of the Guild of Stove Makers, the nearly 100 percent increase in demand for grants for stoves confirms that interest in environmentally friendly and cost-effective wood heating remains steady, and that local heating appliances are part of the energy mix.

Solar thermal systems are another option. A total of 1504 people applied for grants for these systems.