The Slovak government has allocated €13 million in funds for the incentive scheme for residential renewable energy systems.

According to the Slovak Association of Photovoltaic Industry (SAPI), two separate windows for project applications will be opened in 2018, with the first round being called somewhere between January and February. The official dates of the rounds will be published by the of this year.

Veronika Galeková from SAPI told pv magazine the €13 million budget will be devoted to all clean energy technologies, with one quarter going towards residential PV installations.

Galeková said, however, that the budget for next year’s program may be even larger, as it may include unallocated resources from the program’s previous rounds. She added that the program was improved by the government, and that it will suffer no further delays.

Launched in late 2015, the Green Houses Program is run by the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency (SIEA) and grants incentives for the installation of solar water heaters, PV systems up to 10 kW, heat pumps and small windmills. The scheme, which is set to expire in 2018, has enabled the Slovak PV sector to have a minimum level of development after the FIT scheme for solar was closed in 2011.

In 2016, approximately 5 MW of new PV systems were installed in the country, according to official data from local regulator URSO. In 2014 and 2015, newly installed PV capacity was around 4 MW and 2 MW respectively. Most of the country’s PV capacity, over 500 MW, is represented by large-scale solar plants installed under the FIT program between 2010 and 2011.