Since the third quarter of last year, the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW) has recorded a significant increase in applications for co-financing biomass boilers. Interest in this technology has exceeded since February 2024 heat pumps – he says Business Insider.
Clean Air. Biomass boilers dominate among applications for funding
Let us recall that Clean Air is a nationwide subsidy program for replacing old furnaces and insulating single-family homes. The main goal of the program is to combat smog. According to the newestMay data from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, biomass boilers accounted for 46 percent of all applications for heat source replacement. Heat pumps accounted for 29 percent, and condensing gas boilers for 24 percent. In total, almost 16.7 thousand applications for funding were submitted and almost 17.2 thousand contracts were signed. This is a big change, because heat pumps have been the most popular for the last two years. “What happened? The media started receiving information from devastated pump owners who, instead of savings, saw a drastic increase in electricity bills,” BI reports.
Poles are opting for biomass boilers. However, an expert warns
He referred to this, among others, in March Andrew Guła, the leader of the Polish Smog Alert, who stated that “very bad practices and major pathologies” had appeared in this group of beneficiaries. – It's about pushing heat pumps into houses that are not prepared for this, because they are not insulated, by touts who see quite a good business in it – he emphasized. And he added that “this is a straight way to these houses ending up with terrible electricity bills”. Such cases could even amount to thousands. On top of all this, there was supposed to be a drop in price pellets, “which caused an increase in interest in biomass boilers among Poles”. Janusz Starościk, president of the Association of Producers and Importers of Heating Equipment, however, warns in an interview with BI against creating a preferential trend for any heat source.
PLN 11 billion was paid out under the Clean Air program
In his opinion, too strong promotion and artificial creation of demand for a specific technology “will ultimately cause ruin and destruction, turning against this technology”. He cites heat pumps as an example. According to Janusz Starościk, “the high level of subsidies and greed of sellers combined with the lack of specialist knowledge necessary to select and install these devices” contributed to the decrease in customer confidence in this technology.
At the end of June, we reported that 11 billion zlotys had already been paid out under the Clean Air program. Another 11 billion is contracted in subsequent agreements. As Patryk Strzałkowski wrote on Next.gazeta.plaround 6 thousand applications are submitted every week in Poland. However, there are still around 2.2 million buildings in our country that are heated with the worst boilers (below 5. Classes) that should be replaced.