The citizens of Serbia do not know enough about the model and method of financing the energy rehabilitation of buildings and about the fact that they can repay loans to commercial banks through the savings achieved.
Yesterday, Milan Macura, director of the Directorate of the Ministry of Mining and Energy for Finance and Encouraging Energy Efficiency, assessed this.
There are 53,599 housing associations registered in Serbia, but few can get a loan due to lack of credit history, collateral, complex administrative and organizational requirements, it was said at the Round Table “Financing energy renovation of residential buildings”, in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS).
The round table within the project “Better Energy”, whose goal is to improve energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources in municipalities, is organized by the Center for Education and Dual Education and the association of financial institutions PKS in cooperation with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“We all know that the average household runs away from debt and fixed costs, but with the project ‘Bolja energija’ we opened energy info centers in Kula, Niš and Priboj, and with that we are trying to bring citizens closer to understanding the importance of energy efficiency through energy calculators and various tools,” he said. is Matsura.
According to his words, the Ministry, together with USAID and the “Better Energy” project, saw the importance and lack of finance and the possibility of financing more residential buildings. He said that the state will need a lot of time through incentives, and the question is whether it can even allocate the amount of money needed for that.
“Commercial banks should see the importance of housing communities, and the state will try to create some programs, in order to encourage that, in addition to lending, at least 20 to 50 percent help those communities, but again that part that they have to bear is problematic”, Matsura said.
He stated that the Ministry and the state will try to help as much as possible in order to establish this way of financing housing communities and to ensure that 50 to 100 buildings receive loans.
“There is interest in energy efficiency and ‘warming’ of public buildings, but there was no interest in residential buildings, so we decided on residential buildings, knowing that it will be a special challenge,” said USAID program manager Siniša Čađo.
Čađo explained that within the project there are subjects who want to establish a sustainable financial model for financing the “warming” of residential buildings through state aid and citizen participation, but through bank loans.
He added that it is necessary to educate tenants about energy efficiency.
Representatives of relevant ministries, international institutions, local self-governments, commercial banks, as well as professional managers of housing associations participated in the work of the Round Table.
E2 portal
Source: www.e2.rs
