BMI and KfW increase grant funding to up to 75 per cent

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI) and in line with the KfW promotional programme “Energy-efficient Urban Rehabilitation – climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban districts”, new key areas will be promoted starting 1 April 2021: green infrastructure and water-sensitive district design, digitalisation and climate-friendly mobility. Moreover, higher grants and low-interest promotional loans are also part of the offer.

Anne Katrin Bohle, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community: “We are bolstering climate change mitigation in urban districts and thus responding to the needs of the municipalities. Climate change mitigation and adaptation measures can now be jointly planned and implemented. We increased the grants and lowered the requirements for communities’ own contributions. This takes into account the difficult budget situation many municipalities are experiencing. Citizen participation also remains an important issue. So we will also put more resources into promoting online offers.”

Dr Ingrid Hengster, Member of the Executive Board at KfW responsible for domestic promotional business: “The Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community and KfW have been making important contributions to improving climate change mitigation strategies and energy efficiency in municipalities with Energy-efficient Urban Rehabilitation. The district approach makes it possible to recognise additional efficiency potential and realise it quickly. The product improvements create new momentum and make this already successful approach even more appealing.”

The grant funding (programme 432) for concepts will be increased from 65% to 75% from 1 April 2021, municipalities then only need to verify that they can provide 5% instead of 15% of the equity themselves. These amendments are initially temporary, expiring 30 June 2022. Equipment grants that can be used for digital citizen participation offers, among other offers, were permanently increased from 10% to 20%.

In the range of promotional loans (programmes 201/202), the promotional opportunities and repayment bonuses have also been improved and expanded by up to 20%. Municipalities that apply for these loans based on a district concept are even rewarded with a particularly high repayment bonus of up to 40%.

In the time since the programme began on 15 November 2011 to 31 December 2020, over 2,000 promotional commitments were made within the programme (around 1,100 of them were for concepts; approximately 450 were related to redevelopment management, 515 were for neighbourhood supply infrastructures). This distributed a loan volume of EUR 1.22 billion for neighbourhood supply infrastructures and a grant volume of EUR 101 million for concepts and redevelopment management. This year, a total of around EUR 70 million is available for the programme.

Further information:

www.kfw.de

www.bmi.bund.de

www.energetische-stadtsanierung.info