28,000 Low-Income Households Left Waiting for an Energy-Efficiency Voucher Will Get One After All, Without the Home Visit
Applicants found eligible for a Vale Eficiência who never received one can claim 1,300 euros plus VAT per voucher for windows, heat pumps or solar panels. The Environmental Fund emailed them on 30 October; confirmations open on 23 November.
About 28,000 low-income households whose applications for a Vale Eficiência (Efficiency Voucher) were approved but never paid out will get their vouchers after all, Environment and Energy Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho told reporters on Monday, Público and Notícias ao Minuto reported. Each voucher is worth 1,300 euros plus VAT, and the households can spend it on efficient windows, heating or hot water without paying anything up front.
Who this is for
The Fundo Ambiental (Environmental Fund), which runs the scheme, says the new route is only for applicants who were found eligible in the second phase, were still waiting for a technical facilitator to be assigned, and have not yet received any voucher. It is not a new call: nobody else can apply, and there is no new assessment, Público reported.
The second phase was open to households on the Tarifa Social de Energia Elétrica (social electricity tariff), or with a member on certain minimum social benefits, who own, hold a life interest in, or rent the home they live in permanently, according to the Fund's rules. Each household could receive up to three vouchers, the Direção-Geral de Energia e Geologia (Directorate-General for Energy and Geology, DGEG) explains.
The dates to watch
- 30 October: the Fund sent an email to every eligible household in this group, to the address given in the application, setting out the conditions, procedures and deadlines.
- 5 November: more information and the applicable rules go up on the Fund's page.
- From 23 November: households confirm they still want to take part, on the Fundo Ambiental platform.
If you applied, were told you were eligible and have heard nothing, check the inbox (and the spam folder) of the email address you used in the application. The Fund says all contact goes through that address and the applicant's own area on its platform.
What changes in the process
The government has dropped the technical facilitator, the expert who had to visit each home, plan the work and check it afterwards. In Parliament in July, the minister said there were only 75 facilitators for more than 30,000 applications, Público reported. Under the simpler route, households receive the voucher on the platform and exchange it with a supplier signed up to the programme. Before that, the Fund will only check that they owe nothing to the Finanças (tax authority) or Segurança Social (Social Security), and compliance will be checked by sampling.
The eligible items, according to DGEG, are class A windows with exterior shading, renewable hot water systems, renewable heating or cooling such as heat pumps, and solar panels for self-consumption.
Why the vouchers stalled
The scheme was paid for by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), and the second phase had 104 million euros of the programme's 130 million euros. In February, the energy agencies' association RNAE told facilitators to stop issuing new vouchers, with support pushed to 2027, and part of the money moved to the E-Lar programme, which helps vulnerable households swap gas appliances for electric ones, Lusa reported. The minister said the PRR target of 20,000 vouchers was met, and the government is keeping the commitment outside the PRR. By 26 June, she said, the two phases had 48,131 eligible applications and 28 million euros paid.
Vale Eficiência, E-Lar and the more sustainable buildings programme are now closed, the minister said. From 2027, help for vulnerable homes moves to the Social Climate Plan, which Público says plans energy upgrades to about 19,300 homes (our report on that plan).
