Frankfurt, Berlin Many house builders can now count on money for their energy-efficient houses after the sudden halt to subsidies from the state-run KfW. The ministries involved agreed on Tuesday to process applications received before the suspension of the funding program on January 24 according to the old criteria. “Then there is a clear cut. It is the best possible decision in a program that has gotten completely out of hand,” said Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) on Tuesday in Berlin.
This should bring relief to many builders: the sudden stop in funding meant that around 24,000 applications that had already been made but not yet approved initially remained open, of which 4000 were made by private builders. The first to be affected were the Efficiency House 55 (EH55) subsidy programs for new builds, the Efficiency House 40 (EH40) for new builds and energy-efficient refurbishment.
EH55 means that a building consumes only 55 percent of the energy that a reference house needs, while EH40 means that it uses 40 percent of the consumption of a standard house.
The majority of the open applications – around 22,000 – relate to EH55 buildings. So far, the state has given up to 18,000 euros per residential unit for such properties. The subsidy for buildings with this standard would have expired as planned on January 31, and it is no longer to be included because this level of efficiency is now considered the technical standard.
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It looks better for houses and apartments of the much stricter EH40 standard. In the future, only renovations and new buildings with this energy-saving effect should be funded, said Habeck. For the so-called efficiency houses 40, however, there should be reduced funding.
“There is a perspective for those who are now angry that they were a day or a week late,” said the Economics and Climate Minister. However, those house builders who wanted to submit applications after the funding stop and before the end of the month but do not meet the stricter EH40 efficiency standard will get nothing.
One billion euros for efficiency standard 40
However, the new EH40 program should only apply until the end of the year and be capped at a maximum of one billion euros. In this way, the government wants to prevent a storm of applications shortly before the end of the year. Another program for climate-friendly construction should then be set up.
Habeck explained that a solution has only now been found by saying that a different solution was initially preferred.
(Photo: dpa)
The head of the state development bank KfW, Stefan Wintels, made vague statements about the future orientation of the construction subsidy programs in the morning: There seems to be a broad consensus that the topic of renovation makes an important contribution to climate policy, he emphasized. In the renovation of old buildings in particular, the net effects are greatest when it comes to saving CO2. There is also a consensus that a legally agreed energy standard is necessary in Germany.
The federal government had prematurely terminated the previous KfW funding program for energy-saving houses because there were too many applications. Applications could only be submitted by January 24 instead of January 31. The approved money was not enough for the applications that had already been submitted either: an application totaling 7.2 billion euros had budget funds of 1.8 billion euros. The compromise that has now been found will therefore burden the federal government’s budget by an additional five billion euros.
The money for the approval of further applications of the already oversubscribed program comes from the federal climate and transformation fund. According to Habeck, the construction subsidy is in competition with the needs of other federal government programs.
Habeck explained that a solution has only now been found by saying that a different solution was initially preferred. The minister wanted to continue processing such applications that involve cases of social hardship. “It was always really important to me to be generous,” said Habeck. However, it was not possible to implement this procedure with legal certainty. The solution now chosen is a compromise. “In this respect, we are spending more money than the legislator intended, but significantly less than if we had simply let it continue,” explained Habeck.
At KfW, the wires are running hot
The decision from Berlin should also provide relief for the state development bank KfW. “The freeze on orders and funding from federal funding for efficient buildings has led to a great deal of disappointment and uncertainty. Rest assured that this is very important to us on the KfW Executive Board,” said Wintels, who has been head of KfW since October, in the morning. The decision was not easy for the board.
KfW feels the extent of the uncertainty on a daily basis: According to Wintels, the state bank has set up an information hotline and around 800 employees work there. “You can imagine that the wires are running hot there,” says Wintels. However, the development bank will not “run away”, but will be there for customers as much as possible. He very much hopes – and also assumes – that the very sudden stop in funding is a one-off thing.
The decision met with a positive response in the real estate industry. That was “good news,” said Axel Gedaschko, President of the Central Association of the Housing Industry GdW. “For the housing companies concerned, a matter of course is restored: legal certainty for applications submitted on time”. However, many questions remained unanswered – after all, it is still unclear how and which funding programs will apply in the future.
“We are pleased that at least some of our customers can now breathe a sigh of relief,” emphasized Mirjam Mohr, private customer board member of the Interhyp mortgage lending platform. “We need a policy that we can rely on. Sudden production stops undermine this trust.”
More: Comment: The halt to KfW construction funding sends the wrong signals