GRTU and BOV have renewed their agreement to continue offering the PV Purchase Facilitation Scheme. The scheme was a main contributor that guaranteed the success of the last Malta Resources Authority (MRA) incentive. GRTU President Paul Abela thanked BOV for their collaboration, the retailers for the service they provided, Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and the general public for their confidence in the scheme.

Albert Frendo, Chief Officer Credit of Bank of Valletta stated that:  Bank of Valletta is pleased to extend this collaboration agreement with GRTU to continue assist households to finance the purchase and installation of PV systems and solar water heaters at very favourable terms and conditions.  Whilst the Bank is waiving all processing fees of the loans it is also discounting the interest which is eventually paid by the participating retailers under the scheme.  In the past 12 months, the Bank has approved over 1,700 BOV ECO Personal Loans amounting to €11m under this scheme.

GRTU’s initiative was not only targeted at providing a credit facility but it successfully also achieved higher standards in the practices of retailers. GRTU officials handled any customer complaints first hand and ensured the highest of standards were adhered to. Mr Noel Gauci, GRTU Council Member and GRTU President of the Renewable Energy Section said that 1700 families benefitted from the GRTU-BOV scheme and even though the MRA scheme is very important, without the GRTU-BOV scheme 1700 families would have found it difficult to carry out the investment.

In the absence of an MRA rebate scheme and with indication that a new scheme may not be launched in the immediate future, the renewed scheme provides for a good substitute for the three months to come. This because a feed in tariff of €16c5 for the duration of 20 years (last scheme provided for a duration of 6 years) shall be in place. This is a very good opportunity but capped at 4 Mega Watts, out of which 1 Mega Watt has already been allocated, and closes on 31 October.

Engineer Stephanie Baldacchino from the Ministry for Health and Energy thanked GRTU and BOV for the initiative and said that this was a direct contribution to helping Malta in achieving its EU targets.

GRTU President Paul Abela emphasised that today energy is very important and energy security means business security. That is why GRTU made an immediate public complaint following the outage and is till today insisting with Government that our electricity supplier must give some form of assurance to business and put in place a Charter in this respect.