Lack of revenue for the Energy and Climate Fund is said to be currently delaying the German Federal Governments funding program for photovoltaic plant battery storage systems.
A spokesperson for the Federal Environment Ministry confirmed to pv magazine that the program has been put on hold. It is currently unclear when the program, which is expected to allocate 50 million to the promotion of storage systems, will get underway.
The framework for the program, which will be operated by the KfW state bank, had already largely been negotiated on with the Federal Environment Ministry. Indeed, the banks were informed of the details in a in a circular distributed earlier this month by KfW.
Originally, it was planned that the program would be launched on May 1. The ministry spokesperson added that plans to launch it on this date are still on the table. However, no accurate forecasts could, at present, be provided.
Germanys "Taz" has reported in its latest issue that the energy and climate fund, whose revenues come from emissions trading, is threatened by massive revenue losses. It wrote that since prices for green electricity have significantly decreased and would lag behind the originally calculated prices, revenues could be 1 billion, instead of the planned 2 billion.
Germanys Federal Government supports various programs, including building renovation and international climate protection projects via the Energy and Climate Fund. Taz reported that up until mid-February, just 30 million has been paid to projects this year. This, it said, is just half of the planned budget.
According to Steffen Kampeter, who was responding to an enquiry from Taz, internal government deliberations are still currently ongoing regarding the budget allocation for 2013.
Translated and edited by Becky Beetz.
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