“I requested a loan of 8,000 euros to install solar panels.
I had the subsidy – of about 3,000 euros – to pay for it, but we have been waiting for almost two years and I am already afraid that they will never give it to us,” explains Inma Moreno, a 57-year-old teacher from Huelma (Jaén).
Like her, thousands of people have been waiting for months or years to receive state aid after having installed solar panels, charging points for electric cars, rehabilitated buildings or bought electric vehicles.
Although there is no official data, the average to receive these funds is about two years, according to sources from different sectors.
Experts assume that the delay in collecting these amounts harms people with less purchasing power, who cannot afford to advance the investment, and reopens the debate on whether the green transition benefits higher incomes, although they highlight the positive effect of decarbonization for the entire society.
The European Next Generation funds, announced in 2020 after confinement and mobilized from 2021, represented a strong boost to the green transition for citizens.
According to the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), the program for the installation of solar panels is close to 2,000 million, the energy rehabilitation of buildings exceeds 530, while the Moves (for electric cars and charging points) receives almost 1,000.
The deadlines to request them ended on December 31, except in the case of Moves, which is still running.
Most of these programs are autonomously managed and involve a lot of bureaucracy—sometimes also municipal—which lengthens the deadlines more than expected.
José Donoso, general director of UNEF—the photovoltaic employers' association—explains: “The subsidies for installing solar panels are being paid very late, about two years.
People who submitted the application in a timely manner do not have to worry, because they will receive them, but it will take time.
And that can be a problem for some families.”
These are figures in which large installers, such as Iberdrola, and smaller ones, such as Ecooo, agree, and very similar to the delays in collecting aid for the installation of charging points.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition does not have data on how long it takes for beneficiaries to receive them.
A single-family home in Madrid with solar panels, this Tuesday.
“The design of these funds was not intended to redistribute wealth, but rather to try to promote a change in the energy model in Spain.
It is clear that to make an investment of this type you have to have money to be able to advance it, and that already implies a certain purchasing level, although there are also companies that finance it,” says Jorge Morales, director of Próxima Energía.
Jorge Fabra, president of Economists in the face of the crisis, says: “For there to be energy self-consumption, a lot of roof has to be given up, and the houses that have a lot of roof are single-family homes, which are normally owned by high-income people.
But it must be taken into account that the use of these roofs helps the decarbonization of the country and produces a decrease in demand that contributes to reducing the price of electrical energy for everyone, that is, there is a general benefit for the entire society. ”.
“The problem is the enormous bureaucracy and the lack of personnel and resources in public administrations to process all the requests,” says Ana Barreira, director of the International Institute of Law and Environment (IIDMA).
This is what happened to José Vicente Sesmillo, retired for 73 years, who installed plaques in his single-family home in the capital of Madrid at the end of 2021: “They cost me 5,600 euros and they have granted me an aid of 1,900.
The installer sent the file, but they have been demanding documents and reviewing the file for two years.
They granted it to me last summer, but two and a half years have passed and they still have not paid me, like many other residents in the area.”
Iberdrola electric charging point.
Barreira returns: “These situations generate dissatisfaction and it can be perceived that the green transition only favors large companies, which has detrimental consequences for the ecological transition.”
Mario Rodríguez, from Ecodes, agrees: “The perception may arise that these changes are only for the wealthy classes, and this is negative, because the ecological transition has to be good for all citizens.”
Positive inertia
The positive and negative aspects are intertwined, as Aurora Blanco, from Ecooo, points out: “On the one hand, there can be a disincentive effect, because if you really need the help and you know that it takes so long to pay for it, you don't make the investment.
But although the formula is not perfect, it has served to create an advance that generates positive inertia and will later encourage a second layer of citizens to be encouraged to install license plates.”
Is there income bias in these issues?
Pedro Fresco, general director of Avaesen, responds: “Domestic self-consumption has a certain income bias, because it is usually installed by single-family homes, whose families can generally afford an investment of 4,000 to 8,000 euros although it later takes time to collect the 2,000 subsidy. or 3,000 euros.
Where there are the most problems is when buying an electric car, which exceeds 30,000 euros: it is not the same as the subsidy of up to 7,000 euros being given to you at the time - which makes the electric car equivalent to a combustion one - than being come years later.”
A Tesla electric car at a dealership in Valencia.
Europa Press News (Europa Press via Getty Images)
According to the Faconauto employer association, the aid from the Moves plan for electric cars is taking one to two years to reach the beneficiaries.
But sometimes it is longer.
This is what happens to Ramón Gilabert, a 63-year-old farmer from Mogón (Jaén): “I bought a Volkswagen ID4 for 44,000 euros and the dealer told me that they would pay me 7,000 euros to scrap my old car.
"I expected to receive the money in six months, but next month it will be three years and I'm still waiting."
In fact, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has already acknowledged that Moves is working poorly and that it will be modified in the coming months.
The management of subsidies for energy rehabilitation is even more complicated.
“A lot of aid has been requested and then you have to carry out works in a short time and justify that you meet the Next Generation requirements.
They are very new and complex criteria to meet,” says Dolores Huerta, director of the Council for Sustainable Building in Spain.
They can reach up to 18,000 euros per home.
A recent OCU survey indicates that the majority of Spaniards are concerned about climate change and want to reduce their energy consumption and emissions, but only a few are encouraged to take measures to renovate their home and make it more efficient, due in part to the “poor management” of this aid.
The Ministry of Housing does not offer figures on whether they are already being paid, although sources in the sector indicate that they are not yet reaching the beneficiaries.
So how to improve them in the future?
“It is much more effective to apply a tax deduction, which arrives automatically the following year with personal income tax,” proposes Fresco, from Avaesen.
Rodríguez, from Ecodes, concludes: “Income subsidies should be given and special emphasis placed on the vulnerable population, whose subsidies could be processed by social services together with the installers.”
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