Grant for energy from plant and animal materials
Grants for companies, associations and religious institutions investing in Austrian equipment that uses plant- or animal-origin raw materials and residues for heat or combined heat and power.
Esta oportunidade está atualmente disponível em inglês.
The programme supports biogenic materials: raw materials and residues of plant or animal origin, including food-production residues such as grain husks and seasoning residues. Check the official materials list for the permitted feedstock.
Fund heat-generation equipment, combined heat-and-power units that generate electricity and useful heat together, fuel storage and residue preparation, including planning and installation. Fossil-fuel substitution is supported in proportion to the biogenic waste used.
The base grant is 25% of eligible investment costs directly linked to the environmental improvement; capacity expansions and private-use portions are deducted. It is a one-off grant that does not require repayment when you comply with its conditions. A five-percentage-point bonus is available for raw materials sourced within 50 kilometres, and another five points for EMAS-certified businesses, capped at €10,000 for that bonus. EMAS means participating in the registered environmental management and audit scheme. Bonuses remain subject to state-aid limits. The award cannot exceed €1,125 per tonne of annual CO₂ savings, the public funding you say the project needs, or €4.5 million per project.
Biogas-production plants and combined heat-and-power units eligible for EAG support are excluded. EAG is Austria’s Renewable Energy Expansion Act. Projects using only the designated wood residues are directed to the wood-heating or third-party heat-supply programmes.
Costs incurred before submission or after the completion deadline are excluded, apart from planning and preliminary work. Planning and other services needed to prepare the project, such as data collection, count as service costs rather than physical equipment or construction costs. These service costs are excluded to the extent that they exceed 10% of eligible physical investment costs. Your own staff work, individual invoices below €500, financing costs, taxes, maintenance and replacement of failed equipment are excluded. Modernisation must produce a substantial technological and environmental improvement over the existing equipment.
Eligibility
- Companies and other economically active organisations, associations and religious institutions may apply. Foreign companies can apply where the investment is at an operating site in Austria. Private individuals are excluded. Mixed business/private objects or equipment must have more than 50% business use. For mixed-use buildings, business use must exceed 50% of the heated gross floor area. This grant deducts private-use portions from its funding basis.
- At least 95% of the fuel energy must come from biogenic raw materials and residues. Eligible investment costs must exceed €10,000 and annual CO₂ savings must exceed four tonnes. KPC assesses the savings. Without the grant, recovering the investment through savings must take at least three years. KPC assesses this payback period using eligible costs, energy prices at submission and relevant operating-cost changes.
- Check the official biogenic-materials list. An unlisted waste can be accepted case by case with an expert report establishing its biogenic share.
- You cannot combine this grant from Austria’s domestic environmental funding programme (Umweltförderung im Inland, UFI) with support under the Renewable Energy Expansion Act (EAG), including advantages when obtaining market premiums or participating in bidding procedures. Agricultural projects qualify only where they are ineligible for agricultural funding.
- For installations covered by the EU Emissions Trading System, only measures in existing industrial or commercial installations or processes qualify, with environmental investment costs no higher than €2 million. ETS installations supplying electricity or heat to third parties are excluded.
- Biomass boilers are excluded where connection to an efficient or climate-friendly district-heating network is possible.
- For leasing, hire purchase or contracting, apply before signing the financing contract or ordering equipment, whichever comes first. These forms are excluded for EU-cofinanced projects.
- For leasing or hire purchase, the funded equipment must become the grant recipient’s property by the final instalment. The grant payout cannot exceed the deposits and instalments actually paid by final accounting, after deducting interest and fees.
- Under contracting, a service provider (the contractor) supplies equipment or energy services to a customer. If the customer owns the equipment and records it as an asset in its balance sheet, only the customer can apply. The contract must transfer ownership by the final instalment. The customer’s grant payout cannot exceed deposits and instalments actually paid by final accounting, excluding interest and fees.
- If the contractor owns the equipment and records it as an asset in its own balance sheet, only the contractor can apply. Both contractor and customer must fit the programme’s target group. The contractor must demonstrate and maintain the expected environmental improvement throughout the grant contract, and the grant benefit must visibly reach the customer.
How to apply
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Submit a complete application exclusively online to Kommunalkredit Public Consulting (KPC), before the earliest binding order, delivery, construction start or other irreversible commitment. Incomplete applications are rejected. Include the technical description and before/after fuel balance, waste analyses and forecasts, long-term feedstock supply plan, profitability calculation, quotations and permits. A bank report is required above €500,000 investment.
Once KPC confirms receipt, you may start at your own risk. Complete the project within 18 months after the grant contract is issued; exceptions require technical grounds. Sign and return the contract acceptance through KPC’s online platform. Submit final accounts no later than six months after the completion date fixed in the contract.
At final accounting, provide at least one comparison quotation for each major equipment item or cost position; connected suppliers may require three independent comparison offers. Operate the funded equipment for at least ten years. Failure to comply with grant conditions can trigger repayment.