HEAT district heating modernisation grant
Grants for district heating owners to replace fossil-fuel heat sources and make existing heat networks more efficient.
Denne finansieringsmuligheten er foreløpig beskrevet på engelsk.
HEAT funds cleaner heat production and more efficient distribution within existing district heating systems in Czechia. It can support biomass or biogas, heat pumps, geothermal energy and waste heat. Combined heat and power (CHP) makes electricity and useful heat together. Gas CHP is eligible only alongside the specified cleaner sources, with gas supplying no more than 75% of annual heat.
The 2025 application round is closed. These terms describe HEAT 1/2025 as updated in 2026.
The Fund's overview gives a technology- and region-dependent support range of 30–60%; this is not a guaranteed minimum award. Heat-network modernisation receives 30%. For heat-source projects requesting more than EUR 50 million in support, the award is limited by the funding gap: the difference between the proposed investment and a credible alternative without aid over their lifetime, converting future income and costs to today's value.
Those large source projects also have caps on eligible implementation expenditure: 60% for heat pumps/geothermal; 45% for other renewables or waste heat; 50% for combined CHP where innovative technologies supply at least 25% of annual heat; 45% for gas CHP combined with other renewables/waste heat supplying at least 25%; and 30% for other eligible sources. A supported renewable boiler must use 100% renewable fuel; boilers mixing renewables with other fuels are ineligible. The final award can be lower than the cap.
Eligible costs arise after application and include construction, supplies and services directly needed for the project, including pipes connecting a replacement source to the existing network. Design costs qualify only within Design & Build (& Operate) or energy performance contracting. Technical/design supervision and construction safety coordination qualify up to 3% of direct eligible implementation costs. VAT qualifies only when it cannot be reclaimed; a later right to reclaim it requires repayment of the corresponding grant.
Used equipment, property purchases, ordinary project design, permits and opinions, loan repayments/interest, staff, operating and overhead costs and budget contingencies are excluded. Other public support cannot finance the same eligible costs twice; you must notify the Fund and provide the other award document.
Eligibility
Your project must be in Czechia. You must own either an existing heat source with a licence to produce heat and/or electricity and a licence to distribute heat, a district heating system operated by a holder of those licences, or a new licensed replacement source feeding an existing system with that system owner's consent. A new source must replace at least part of an existing source.
A heat-source reconstruction or replacement must change the fuel base. Replacing natural gas is allowed only with the heat-pump/geothermal technology category. For the other replacement categories, coal and its derivatives must represent at least 80% of original primary-energy use. Coal-derived fuels cannot be burned in the supported source after completion. Entirely new district heating systems, standalone sources/pipes outside district heating, photovoltaic installations and new sources that do not modernise or replace existing capacity are excluded.
For source replacement, CO₂ emissions must fall by at least 20%, or 15% for heat pumps and waste heat. Nonrenewable primary-energy consumption must fall by at least 15%, demonstrated primarily—at least 80%—against a coal source. Total primary-energy consumption must also fall, except for projects using renewable energy exclusively. CHP above 1 MWe must demonstrate primary-energy savings of at least 10%. Combustion sources must comply with air-protection law and relevant air-quality programmes.
For biomass, supply an analysis confirming that the fuels meet the sustainability criteria under Decree 110/2022. Medium combustion plants must meet particulate emissions at no more than 80% of the specified legal limit; plants covered by industrial-emissions rules must achieve the lower, more ambitious half of the applicable best-available-techniques particulate range. Biomass projects cannot be supported in cadastral areas exceeding PM₁₀ or PM₂.₅ limits on the official rolling five-year pollution maps.
Network modernisation must reduce both CO₂ emissions and primary-energy use by at least 20%. New pipes connecting to an existing system instead have a 10% minimum for both.
The completed system must meet the efficient district heating rules in force when the project finishes. This means checking the system's annual heat mix, rather than treating efficient equipment alone as sufficient. Through 2027 the qualifying routes include at least 50% renewable heat, 50% waste heat, 75% CHP heat or 50% from their combination. From 2028 the CHP-only route requires 80% high-efficiency CHP; the combined route requires at least 50% from qualifying sources, including at least 5% renewable heat. The 50% renewable, waste-heat or combined renewable/waste-heat routes also apply. From 2028 an alternative is emissions no higher than 150 g of greenhouse gases per kWh of heat delivered to customers. Thresholds tighten again in later years. For a substantial network reconstruction costing more than half a comparable new system, additional restrictions prevent increasing non-gas fossil use and, through 2030, connecting a new source burning a fossil fuel other than gas. The Energy Regulatory Office publishes the register of efficient systems.
Property rights must normally be settled at application, at least through agreements to conclude future contracts. Combined source-and-connection projects may settle them before signing the Fund contract, no later than the end of 2027.
You cannot be insolvent, in liquidation, overdue on public-budget liabilities or taxes, or a company affected by the call's conflict-of-interest exclusion. That exclusion covers a company at least 25% owned by a public official covered by section 2(1)(c) of the Conflict of Interest Act, or an entity they control; ownership and beneficial owners must be documented.
The Fund also checks whether you are an undertaking in financial difficulty under the EU definition and its current guidance. For limited-liability companies, accumulated losses after reserves and other own funds must not erase more than half of subscribed share capital, including relevant share premium. For companies with unlimited-liability members, the capital-loss test uses the capital in company accounts. Other tests include grounds for collective insolvency, an unrepaid rescue loan or unterminated rescue guarantee, or a restructuring plan still running after restructuring aid. A business that is not a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) is also considered in financial difficulty if it had both a book debt-to-equity ratio above 7.5 and EBITDA interest coverage below 1.0 over the previous two years; the latter compares earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation with interest costs. SMEs less than three years old are exempt from the two capital-loss tests, but not the insolvency or rescue/restructuring tests.
Complete source projects within 60 months of the minister's funding decision, network projects within 36 months and combined source/connection projects within 84 months. Completion requires at least a preliminary acceptance certificate. For objective, unforeseeable reasons, you may request an extension from the Fund before the original completion deadline. Maintain the funded project and its results for ten years from its entry into permanent operation, permit inspections and meet the agreed indicators; nonfulfilment can reduce support.
How to apply
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- The 2025 round is closed. The 2026 amended call retains the original application dates.
Use the State Environmental Fund's HEAT call page for the operative call and prescribed forms. The 2025 round is closed; applications for that round were submitted electronically through AIS SFŽP ČR. Complete eligible applications were assessed in order of receipt, within the available allocation.
The application pack includes authority to act, a technical study or appropriate project design with budget, an energy assessment by an authorised specialist, an emissions assessment for source projects, biomass sustainability analysis where relevant, property-rights evidence where required, financial analysis and bank-account evidence. Supply the Fund's prescribed financial-difficulty documents, including company-size and economic-group information, and ownership/beneficial-owner records. The Fund checks the technical and financial parameters and whether the project meets the call conditions. Large heat-source projects must also describe the investment over at least 15 years after completion and undergo the applicable individual EU/EIB assessment.
Keep project transactions separately identifiable in your accounting. Payment follows an effective grant contract and fully paid project invoices. Reimbursement is in instalments after expenditure; payments above 50% of the initially established funding gap or contracted award require all project contracts to be concluded and the financial analysis updated. Submit annual implementation monitoring by 15 January for the preceding year and final-evaluation documents within 15 months of implementation completion.
Notify the Fund of changes and obtain its favourable opinion before implementing changes that affect the grant conditions. Notify legal charges on the supported assets; the Fund assesses whether they threaten delivery or operation, with the call's exceptions for statutory/subsidy-security liens and engineering networks on land. Follow the Modernisation Fund publicity manual and allow inspections throughout the ten-year maintenance period.