Program podpory na zvýšené náklady na zemní plyn a elektřinu

Support programme for the increased cost of natural gas and electricity

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is currently preparing a Call for Proposals from the Programme of Support for Increased Costs of Natural Gas and Electricity as a result of an extraordinarily sharp increase in their prices. According to the information currently available to us, it should be possible to submit applications electronically from the first half of November 2022.

Businesses that meet a number of conditions and are either medium-sized consumers (annual gas consumption at the point of consumption is at least 630 MWh) or large consumers can apply for support.

The support will be provided in the form of a subsidy for eligible costs and should amount to:

a)     for an applicant not applying as an Energy Intensive Enterprise or Enterprise in Selected Sectors, 30 % of eligible costs, up to a maximum of CZK 45 million per beneficiary.

b)     for an applicant applying as an Energy Intensive Enterprise, 50 % of the eligible costs, up to a maximum of the lower of 80 % of the operating loss or CZK 200 million per beneficiary. 

c)     for an applicant applying as an Enterprise in Selected Sectors, 70 % of the eligible costs, up to a maximum of the lower of 80 % of the operating loss or CZK 200 million per beneficiary.

Eligible costs should then be those costs incurred in connection with the increase in the cost of natural gas and electricity as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The amount will be set as the difference between this year's actual price (alternatively, an average price is reportedly being considered) and twice last year's price, with the subsidy for September and October 2022 covering a maximum of 70% of the consumption in the same period in 2021.

If the applicant is applying as an Energy Intensive Enterprise (an enterprise whose purchases of energy products and electricity account for at least 3.0% of turnover) or as an Enterprise in Selected Sectors (an energy intensive enterprise operating in one or more of the sectors or sub-sectors listed in the EC Temporary Crisis Framework), in addition to the conditions for an eligible applicant, the applicant must (a) be in an operating loss (EBITDA ˂ 0) and (b) eligible costs must account for at least 50% of the operating loss.

The call contains a number of other conditions, in addition to the usual ones (the applicant is not bankrupt/executed/liquidated or an unreliable payer and has no arrears to tax authorities/health insurance companies etc.), including, for example, the condition that the recipient's management has not, at the time of the application, waived in full and not only temporarily, any increase in its remuneration (including all components of remuneration) and variable remuneration for the current financial year, nor has it received any direct or indirect compensation for this waiver (from all entities in the group).

If this is an area of interest to you, or if you are considering preparing a grant application and would like assistance, please contact the authors of this article or the EY advisory team with whom you usually work.

Authors:

Martin Hladký

Martin Veverka