Update 2:
Energy saving schemes, including assistance for people to buy energy saving equipment, were saving the country €5 million a year in electricity generation costs, Resources Minister George Pullicino said today.
He was speaking at the Malta Resources Authority, where hundreds of people this morning flocked to apply for financial schemes to assist them to install domestic solar heaters or photovoltaic units.
Some 300 people were waiting outside the MRA offices in Marsa at 7.30 this morning, with the first having gone there at about 4 a.m.
Mr Pullicino welcomed the response for the schemes.
He said that talks were being held with the Attorney General on amendments to the law so that tenants of apartments and flats could have access to the roof to install energy saving equipment, in the same way as they currently have a right to install a water tank and a TV aerial.
The 2010 Renewable Energy Incentive Scheme, for which applications are open today, offers a grant of 50% of the costs up to a maximum of €3,000 on the purchase of photovoltaic systems. The scheme is open to all families except those who have already benefited from a similar scheme in the past.
The scheme offering a grant of 40% of the costs up to a maximum of €560 on the purchase of solar water heating systems is open to households in receipt of an energy voucher, households in receipt of social assistance, all Gozo residents, first time buyers of property whose value does not exceed €120,000 and which property must have been bought as from 1st January 2010 and households in receipt of the children’s allowance where the household income is less than €23,923,
The scheme is also open to households whose income or joint income is of less than Euro 16,070
The budget allocated for the 2010 Renewable Energy Incentive Scheme, funded by the European Regional Development Fund – Social Cohesion Fund, is of €3.8 million for grants on the purchase of photovoltaic systems and €4.2 million for grants on the purchase of solar water heating technologies.
Interested applicants can download information from www.mra.org.mt
Applications will be received at the Malta Resources Authority, Millennia 2nd Floor, Triq Aldo Moro, Marsa and at the Ministry for Gozo, up to 4 p.m. today
Last year's scheme closed yesterday, by which time 3,700 applications had been received by the MRA.
In a statement this evening the MRA said that it received more than 430 appplications today - the first day of applications for photovoltaic panels.
The scheme provides for 416 systems so the authority has now closed the scheme. However, applications for grants on solar water heating systems were still being received.