New Energy Savings loan
Interest-free loans of CZK 500,000–60 million and a conditional grant help businesses cut energy use in five Czech regions.
Această oportunitate este disponibilă momentan în limba engleză.
Národní rozvojová banka (NRB) finances energy-saving investments through New Energy Savings (Nové Úspory Energie). Businesses can improve existing buildings or replace production equipment with more efficient machinery. The project must be in Central Bohemia, South Bohemia, the Plzeň Region, Vysočina or South Moravia.
The loan covers up to 90% of eligible project costs. It has a fixed 0% interest rate, no additional loan fees and free early repayment. The loan term can be up to ten years from signing the agreement; drawing the loan and deferring principal repayments can each run for up to two years from signing the loan agreement. Security is agreed with NRB, which can also require the applicant to contribute its own funds.
A performance grant can cover up to 20% of eligible costs and is paid to the business after the required energy verification or, for the simplified assessment route, the completion declaration. It cannot exceed the loan actually drawn, and loan plus grant cannot exceed 100% of eligible costs. These are ceilings, not an automatic 90% loan plus 20% cash award.
Public-aid limits can reduce the package. NRB counts the grant together with the monetary value of the interest saving, rather than counting the whole repayable loan as a grant. For production-equipment replacement or a comprehensive building upgrade, the maximum aid intensity is 55% for small, 45% for medium and 35% for large businesses. For a single building-envelope measure, it is 50%, 40% and 30% respectively. The small-aid route, called de minimis, also depends on the business's remaining allowance. NRB determines the applicable route and final package with the applicant.
Keep energy records after completion. Where an expert energy assessment is required, the verification report is due within three years and six months after completion and uses a qualifying twelve-month measurement period. Failure to achieve the required savings, including after an allowed extension, can remove the grant entitlement and make the entire outstanding preferential loan due at once.
For machinery replacement under GBER, eligible costs normally reflect the extra cost over a credible alternative investment without support. If the call’s alternative method without that comparison is used, the eligible investment costs are reduced by 50%. NRB therefore calculates the percentage limits against the accepted eligible-cost base, which can be lower than the total purchase price.
Eligibility
The applicant must be a business person or legal entity with a Czech business identification number (IČO) and the necessary business authorisation. If the project activity can only be licensed after completion, another valid business authorisation is sufficient at application. Beneficial owners must be registered where required. The applicant needs a Czech establishment when support is paid and must meet Czech income-tax registration requirements during the agreement. Municipalities, regional authorities and their associations cannot apply.
NRB assesses creditworthiness and compliance with the call. Applicants must meet the rules on tax, social-insurance and other public debts, wage arrears, enforcement, insolvency and recovery of unlawful aid. Agreed payment deferrals count as settled obligations; a court-approved reorganisation has a specified exception. The programme excludes businesses meeting the formal financial-distress test, including under de minimis.
The Article 2(18) GBER test covers any applicable ground below:
- Accumulated losses have erased more than half the relevant capital: subscribed share capital for limited-liability companies, or capital shown in the accounts for companies with unlimited-liability members. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) less than three years old are exempt from these capital-loss tests; the other grounds still apply.
- The business is in collective insolvency proceedings, or meets the national conditions for creditors to request them.
- Rescue aid remains outstanding as an unpaid loan or unterminated guarantee, or a restructuring plan following restructuring aid still applies.
- For a non-SME, both conditions held in each of the last two financial years: the book debt-to-equity ratio was above 7.5, and the ratio of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to interest costs was below 1.0.
The assessment also considers the controlled group where relevant. Use NRB's PVO financial-distress assessment spreadsheet with the applicable accounts and group information; the young-SME exception does not waive NRB's credit assessment or the other exclusion grounds.
Eligible building work includes insulation or replacement of envelope elements such as windows. Heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and other technical systems must accompany an envelope measure. A comprehensive upgrade combines at least one of each and meets the call's thermal standards. On-site renewables, storage, green roofs, rainwater measures or building-user charging points can be supplementary measures under the call. This is not a stand-alone solar or charging-station loan. The separate machinery-replacement route cannot be combined with building measures or unrelated work; replacement machinery must have zero direct exhaust CO₂ emissions.
The project must save at least 10% of annual primary energy under de minimis or 20% under the EU block-exemption route (GBER). Primary energy uses the call's energy-source factors, not just a reduction in the electricity bill. Savings from supplementary measures such as renewables normally do not count toward this minimum. The de minimis exception applies where the building envelope already met the prescribed reference heat-loss standard before application registration. An authorised specialist normally prepares the energy assessment. NRB's calculator can replace it only for qualifying building projects costing no more than CZK 5 million excluding VAT under de minimis; solar thermal is excluded from this simplified route, and battery storage must accompany new solar PV for optimising its own electricity use.
Support excludes fishery and aquaculture activities and specified tobacco production and trade; primary agriculture is also excluded under de minimis. A business with mixed activities must separate eligible activities and costs. New buildings, ordinary repairs, used equipment, land or building purchases, VAT, leasing, refinancing and related-party suppliers are outside the financed scope. Residential, recreational and public/state buildings are generally excluded, with the stated exception for Správa železnic and a documented conversion to an eligible building use. Building projects must address protected birds and bats, climate risks and the call's environmental safeguards.
The call excludes fossil-fuel investments and projects connected with stationary EU emissions-trading installations: this covers a project at the same address, and a same-activity project elsewhere if it can affect that installation or activity. Technology-specific limits also apply. Check the call and technical annexes before specifying equipment. Replaced machinery must be taken out of use within the contract deadline, no later than one year after completion. The same eligible costs cannot receive other state aid, whether through a grant, subsidised loan, guarantee or another aid instrument, nor centrally managed EU aid or de minimis support. This restriction concerns aid for those costs; it does not prohibit ordinary commercial co-financing.
How to apply
- Statut
- se închide 30 sept. 2029
- Se deschide
- Se închide
- Condițiile sesiunii de finanțare
- Complete projects ready for implementation receive priority; submission does not reserve funds. NRB may change or close the call earlier.
Applications opened on 5 August 2026. The published call closes on 30 September 2029, subject to NRB's right to change or end intake earlier. Submission alone does not reserve funds: complete projects ready for implementation receive priority.
Contact an NRB business office, select the aid route and prepare the current loan application, project annexes, client and financial information, and environmental-safeguards questionnaire. The instructions identify additional documents that may follow, including the energy assessment, business-size and aid declarations, identification and tax/social-security clearance certificates no older than 30 days. Send completed editable forms electronically, unsigned and in their original formats, with readable scans of supporting documents. NRB accepts submission through its business offices, data box or online filing service.
For the GBER route, register the application before starting construction or making the first binding equipment order or other irreversible commitment; permits, feasibility studies and land purchase are preparatory steps. Under de minimis, the project must not already be completed when applying. Assets financed by the loan must not already have been put into use before the loan agreement. Eligible expenditure must generally be paid on or after application, and NRB does not reimburse invoices already settled from the applicant's own funds through the loan.
NRB checks the project, costs, energy evidence and credit risk before agreeing the loan and security. An incomplete application can be rejected after three months. Implement the agreed project, measure the savings and submit the completion and verification documents required for the grant.