State to financially support energy efficiency projects

The state aims to support, including financially, the institutions and consumers that will implement energy efficiency projects. The utilization of stimuli for projects that would limit the use of technologies of a poor quality that imply excessive energy consumption is envisioned in the National Energy Efficiency Increase Program until 2020, which was recently approved by the Government, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a program on Radio Moldova, the head of the Economy Ministry’s General Security and Energy Efficiency Division Vadim Ceban said that a number of foreign donors expressed readiness to finance such projects, including the EBRD, the EIB and the governments of some countries. “By implementing this three-year action plan, we will test the mechanism for financially stimulating the energy efficiency projects,” he stated. According to Vadim Ceban, they are considering the possibility of lending money from the grants offered by foreign donors to dwelling owners associations for implementing energy efficiency projects such as thermal insulation of apartment buildings. When paid back, this money can be used to implement new projects. There will be stimuli for consumers as well. The small companies, especially those operating in rural areas, will be exempted from paying taxes on the sums used to purchase installations and equipment for producing energy from renewable sources. The household users may deduct the sums used to buy such equipment from the taxable income. Among the objectives of the National Energy Efficiency Increase Program are to reduce the global primary energy consumption by 20%, to increase the share of renewable energy from 6% in 2010 to 20% in 2020, to raise the share of biofuels to at least 10% of all the fuels used, to decrease by at least 25% the greenhouse gas emissions, compared with 1990.