Energy Wood III – EUR 10,000 still available for biomass heating systems

The implementation of the third phase of the Energy Wood project, which started in October last year in Montenegro, will continue in 2018, until the remaining EUR 10,000 for modern biomass heating systems are spent.

Over the past three months, more than 200 interest-free loans have been approved for biomass (pellet and briquettes) heating systems. Still, there are EUR 10,000 left from the EUR 85,000 total budget for Energy Wood III, the Ministry of Economy of Montenegro announced. So far, about 90 percent of funds for this project have been spent.

Energy Wood III program started on October 16 in 2017. It has given citizens a possibility to opt for cleaner heating fuels in their households. The loans enable citizens to apply for 0% interest rate loans with range up to EUR 3,500 and with a repayment period of 5 years, so that they could purchase and install a heating system on modern biomass fuels.

The Ministry announced that citizens could apply for a loan in any of the four banks, its partners in the implementation of this project – Atlas Bank, NLB Bank, Hipotekarna banka or Prva banka, but that the majority of funds for the subsidy of interest free loans remains in Atlas bank.

Project’s completion deadline was the end of 2017, but the Ministry of Economy of Montenegro, which provided the funds for the program, extended it due to remaining funds.

The Ministry invited citizens to use the benefits that this program provides as soon as possible and use the possibility of credit and the remaining funds for the implementation of the program for switching to cleaner fuels for households.

Previous two projects that were implemented in the past four years with the support of the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency and the Government of Norway, resulted in installment of 775 biomass heating systems.

The program Energy Wood aims at reducing the interest rates for clients, as well as the risk for financial institutions, encouraging the development of partnerships between commercial banks and distributors of biomass heating equipment, as well as reducing total greenhouse gas emissions through the installation of a biomass heating system.