An additional 35 million euros have been allocated for the renovation of apartment buildings.

On Tuesday, the Cabinet of Ministers approved amendments to the EU fund support program “Promoting the increase of energy efficiency in residential buildings”, allocating additional funding for the renovation of buildings, as well as clarifying certain norms for procurement and pooling of support. Along with the amendments, “Altum” has been granted additional financing in the amount of 35 million euros for increasing the energy efficiency of multi-apartment residential buildings, which will allow the implementation of projects meeting the conditions contained in the regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers, whose applications were submitted to Altum by January 11 of this year, but for which there was insufficient funding. It is planned that within the framework of this financing, approximately 150 more apartment buildings will receive support (in the form of guarantees and grants). “Measures to promote the energy efficiency of buildings can become an effective tool for restoring economic activity, helping entrepreneurs and the Latvian economy to overcome the consequences of the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as helping residents organize the housing stock and reduce heating expenses. Additional funding for this program will lead to additional investments in the Latvian economy and construction industries, which will create new jobs. It is important to point out that more than 60% of the money invested in house renovation remains in the Latvian economy. Investments in housing insulation are also an important source of support for Latvian building material manufacturers,” states Minister of Economy Jānis Vitenbergs. The house renovation program is also particularly important because it will promote economic activity in the regions, as so far the most active housing renovation projects in the program have been submitted from the regions of Latvia. The building renovation projects completed so far show a significant reduction in energy consumption – if before the renovation of the house the average energy consumption was 165 kWh per year, after the renovation works it is on average 67% lower or 54 kWh per year, which is also a significant saving for residents’ costs. Until January 11 of this year, when the acceptance of projects was stopped, a total of 885 project applications for the preliminary amount of 375 million euros were submitted to Altum. At the same time, amendments to the regulations of the Council of Ministers provide for new conditions for the selection of suppliers. See the full version of the article here.