Grant schemes, worth €158 million, will be made available in 2022, Minister of Energy, Trade and Industry Natasa Pilides announced during an online workshop, on Wednesday, 16 February.

Pilides stressed that the Ministry is continuing for the second year its ambitious programme to support Cypriot households and businesses. "In 2021, we announced schemes worth €130 million to restart the economy. We are continuing in 2022 with calls for new schemes with a total budget of €158 million." As explained, €100 million will be allocated for businesses, €49 million for household energy upgrades and €9 million for energy upgrades for local authorities.

Applications for the first grant scheme open on 24 February and concern the creation and modernisation of agricultural processing and marketing units, worth €25 million, followed in March by the €40 million plan for the energy upgrading of businesses.

According to Pilides, the schemes for businesses include support for the agricultural processing and the marketing sector, and will open on 24 February 2022 (€25 million), while for energy upgrading of enterprises will open on March 2022 (€40 million). Additional schemes include: digital business upgrading (€10 - €20 million); support for large manufacturing enterprises (€7 million); provision of advisory services to SMEs (€5 million); and strengthening the circular economy (€13.3 million).

The projects for the energy upgrade of homes and local authorities include replacement of energy-intensive household appliances by vulnerable households, which is already running as of December 2021, with over 3,150 applications submitted so far (€5 million), installation of photovoltaic panels and roof insulation, which will run from April - May 2022 (€7.3 million) and will include virtual net metering. Other projects include the installation or replacement of solar water heater (March - April 2022, €450k), photovoltaic systems for charging electric vehicle (March - April 2022, €1.5 million), residential energy upgrade (H2 2022, €35 million) and energy upgrading of local authorities and public authorities (March 2022, €9 million).

In addition, the provisions of a grant scheme for the creation, modernisation and digital upgrading of small and medium-sized enterprises in the agricultural products processing and marketing sector were also presented during the workshop. According to the Director of the Department of Industry and Technology, Christos Fotiadis, the plan`s objectives are the modernisation of the agricultural products processing sector with the development of new products with high added value, the creation of new jobs especially in rural areas and the utilisation of local production of the primary sector.

Finally, it is noted that the plan will be implemented in the framework of the Cyprus Recovery and Resilience Plan (RSP) and will be financed by the European Union Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, the central instrument of NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument for financing the EU`s recovery and exit from the pandemic crisis.