KfW funding cancelled
Tens of thousands of construction projects are affected
01/26/2022, 07:16 am
It comes as a shock to many builders: the federal government is canceling the promotional programs of the state KfW for energy-efficient buildings with immediate effect. The board of directors of the Empirica Institute criticizes the fact that the commitments were cashed in over the duration of the funding: “That shouldn’t happen in an orderly state.”
According to one estimate, around 50,000 construction projects will be directly affected by the loss of KfW Efficiency House funding. “Roughly estimated 50,000 houses and apartments” are affected, said Harald Simons, head of the Empirica Institute, the “world”. For the estimate, he analyzed the number of building applications for new construction projects. Simons assumes that almost half of the 100,000 planned construction projects in the relevant timeframe from the end of November to around May would have benefited from the funding.
“These projects must now be re-planned and re-applied for, and many builders will also wait and see which follow-up measures may come,” Simons told the newspaper. He expected significant delays of up to a year. “This is the logical consequence of the Habeck shock,” Simons continued. “I find it unbelievable that the new federal government simply cashes in on the commitments made about the duration of the funding programs. That shouldn’t happen in a orderly state.”
The federal government surprisingly announced on Monday that the current support from the state KfW for energy-efficient buildings would be stopped with immediate effect. The reason is the end of the new building subsidy according to the KfW efficiency standard EH55 announced in November 2021 by the previous government for the end of January.
Funds already exhausted
The announcement led to a real rush for funding, said the Federal Ministry of Economics by Robert Habeck (Greens). The funds available for the support programs as part of the provisional budget management have already been exhausted.
The support program for the higher EH40 standard and energy-saving renovations are also affected by the stop. Applicants who have not yet received any feedback can only hope: the budget funds currently available are not sufficient for the applications that have not yet been decided, the Ministry of Economics explained.