The ecotechnics company from Częstochowa has been operating on the local market since 2019, ACSummer later, she began to perform thermomodernization works for the beneficiaries of the Clean Air program. As part of it, she made about 1.5 thousand investment. – We focused on an honest service (…) We are very well rated – our average rating on Google is 5.0 – at a press conference organized on July 24 by the Association of Pure Air Employers, Piotr Pilarski said.
Currently, the company is indebted at 900 thousand. PLN, and the arrears in payments from the Provincial Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management reach over PLN 4 million. 85 applications are expected to co -finance, of which the oldest are in the queue for more than a year. Consequently, the employment in the renewable energy ecotechnics from 70 people decreased by about half, the payment of remuneration for part of the crew was suspended, and the company has arrears at the wholesalers and subcontractors. – We liquefy our assets, including selling cars. We are fighting for existence – reported Pilarski.
Read also: “It's juggling with statistics.” Clean air in the first months after resumption
“Return to the Age of Stone”
The problems began in the autumn of 2024, when the Provincial Fund suspended the payment of second tranches of subsidies. As a representative of the renewable energy ecotechniki said, a difficult situation does not allow the company to take a loan enabling the repayment of liabilities.
According to Paweł Cygan, a member of the board of the Association of Pure Air Employers, there are more similar stories from month to month. For example, overdue payments to the Warsaw company Termostars exceeded PLN 1 million. In the entire clean air, to suspend in November last year, for about 1 million submitted applications, only settled only 450 thousand investmentand the total scale of arrears is over PLN 10 billion. Hubert Dzibuła from the production company Defro spoke directly; Smaller and larger businesses from the installation and heating sector are threatened with bankruptcy, energy transformation in the building sector, while- Compromise in the eyes of public opinion.
Mariusz Dąbek, president of the Association of Pure Air, recently told us about the free procedure of applications by voivodship funds, arrears in payments, but also the suspension of payments, when one element of the investment raises reservations. In the opinion of Dariusz Zieliński from Termostars, the new version of the program that returned on March 31 was to simplify and improve the procedures, also providing greater availability of funds, but the promises were not fulfilled. What's more – there was a step back, which results in “total paralysis”. A previously filed program, which could previously be applied through an online generator of applications for funding, after resumption became analog.
– We must physically arrange with the operator, i.e. the voivodship fund, book a specific day and time, and then accompany the official when entering the application in the system until we receive confirmation. In the era of automation, it is a return to the stone era – a businessman strongly diagnosed.
The longest time of submitting the application according to Zieliński's account lasted eight hours, and many places lack free dates. The burdensome procedures strengthen the distrust of beneficiaries, which are often affected by people affected by energy poverty and digital exclusion.
Common rules
The Termostars representative also complained about the inconsistent interpretation of the provisions in the implementation of various voivodship funds. Two different units can consider the same documents to meet guidelines and qualify for accepting the application or on the contrary.
– the situation is schizophrenic; The program is to be nationwide, but its interpretation remains localdespite the fact that we refer to the same regulations and recommendations of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW) – indicated Zieliński.
As Paweł Cygan said, despite the narrative of fraud, clean air really brought successful results and It helped significantly reduce the problem of energy poverty. Entrepreneurs would like to rebuild the program, so they formulated their own demands.
The first concerns the protection of previously concluded contracts and investments implemented – according to the Union, they should be settled according to older rates, and not those adopted in the new installment of the program. The same applies to compliance with previous regulations in the case of still unsettled conclusions from 2024.
The industry organization also calls for financial support for contractors, and also demands the standardization of the program at the national level. – At the moment there is no single clean air, only 16 versions; As much as provincial funds. We appeal that each of them acted in the same way – said Cygan.
Provincial funds received guidelines?
The deadline for implementing the investment in cases independent of the Contractor, as we learn from the next postulate, should extend from 120 to 180 days, and the extension of the network of certified operators would help to eliminate congestion. The Association of Pure Air Employers also supports the concept of the Polish smog alarm, which would like to introduce a free voucher for an energy audit – so as to break the financial barrier discouraging to participate in the program of less wealthy potential beneficiaries.
On 24, NFOŚiGW also spoke on July 24. In the announcement presented, the Fund states that dialogue with contractors “brings specific results”, and the next meeting with their representatives is scheduled for Monday, July 28. Help in unifying and accelerating the assessment of applications is to be introduced by the NFEPWW Table of unit costs of thermomodernization of houses.
– “It also helps the beneficiaries of the program in estimating expenses that are covered by the subsidy and facilitates the assessment of contractors' offers” – writes about the Fund's table. As we find out, provincial funds have also received guidelines that oblige them, among others to the priority settlement of all applications from 2024. Payments are expected to take place no later than until the end of September, and the next point says that it must reach them within three days of approval of the application.
The “central” fund also recommends provincial funds to pay partial subsidies, when only the amount of unit costs raises doubts. Funds are to precisely define their reservations, using “neutral language not in the good name of the performers.” Contractors will also gain a guide prepared by the NFOŚiGW.
“Ad hoc and system activities”
In recent days, our editors have also received answers from the Ministry of the Climate and the Environment (MKIŚ) to previously asked questions about clean air, including assistance to beneficiaries injured by dishonest contractors, an information campaign on the program and its financing.
As the ministry announces us, “ad hoc and systemic actions” are undertaken in defense of the beneficiaries – the inter -ministerial working group is to work on the second. Its purpose is to develop legal solutions that will allow voivodship funds to flexibly approach the debt collection of unused or poorly used funding.
“As part of the designed solutions, there is, among others, failure to seek a return in a situation not related by beneficiaries or distributing receivables into installments. We want to prepare solutions that will help to react individually to problems” – MKIŚ assures us. He adds that currently voivodship funds must be guided by applicable law, which requires an investigation of the return of public funds.
The resources of the resorts are to be solved by the cited municipal operators. NFOŚiGW, and strengthening the awareness of recipients, as we read in the answers, is implemented e.g. by educational webinars or other materials and information tools.
“The key to success is activity at a local level, in most municipalities in Poland there are consultation points of the program, energy advisers operate in each voivodship, in addition, WFOŚiGW and NFOŚiGW centrally run their activities locally,” MKIŚ informs us.
The entire budget of the program we asked about in the calculations of the ministry is over PLN 44 billion. However, funds from the social climate fund (PLN 13.35 billion), which Poland does not yet have; If we receive them, it was only in 2026.
