Slovakian government hands out €700,000 for residential solar in just 36 minutes

The Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency (SIEA) awarded €700,000 in incentives for residential PV systems in less than 36 minutes when it launched the latest round of Phase II of its Green Houses Program.

The agency received 492 applications in the round and almost all the requests were granted on Tuesday, as in previous exercises.

The SIEA has awarded rebates to more than 1,700 small PV projects at a cost of €2.4 million. Overall, the incentive scheme has handed out €17.5 million to more than 8,600 installations of all types of renewable energy system.

Launched in late 2015, the Green Houses Program grants incentives for the installation of solar water heaters, PV systems with a generation capacity of up to 10 kW, heat pumps and small wind turbines. The first phase of the scheme concluded at the end of 2018.

Under the program’s second phase, the Slovak government is targeting the installation of at least 140 MW of renewables capacity.

Slovakia’s Ministry of Economy in late February opened the country’s first technology-neutral, large scale renewable energy auction. The procurement round is part of a new clean energy and co-generation support scheme introduced by an amendment to the Act in Support of Renewable Energy Sources and High Efficiency Combined Heat and Power (Act No. 309/2009 Coll).