ArmInfo. The German Government through the German-Armenian Fund (GAF) has provided Armenia 150 million EUR for the implementation of the program "Renewable Energy Assistance", of which 50 million EUR were spent on the restoration of the Vorotan Cascade of HPPs, 64 million EUR for retraining specialists and holding seminars. On June 28, during the presentation to the beneficiaries of the GAF program "Renewable energy assistance" financed by the German bank KfW, German Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kiesler reported.
From a financial point of view, Vakhtang Abrahamyan, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia, commented on the situation. He noted that Armenia's cooperation with GAF has lasted since 2004, within the framework of which a number of reforms were made, in particular in the financial sphere. "This contributed to the formation of certain skills and skills in this specialization, which managed to develop the appropriate banking products. As a result, favorable conditions were created for the development of this business. In order to stimulate the development of renewable energy sources today, in the framework of lending to business entities, priority is given to those loans that contain the energy component, and the interest rates for such loans are lower than the current market by 2-3%," the CB representative said, responding to a question from ArmInfo. Abrahamyan stressed that in the context of favorable conditions and the availability of reliable partners, the program will be of a long-term nature, and in the process will help attract investors.
In particular, during the presentation it was noted that under the third stage of this program 97 projects were financed, 86 of which are aimed at installing solar water heaters, and 11 - photovoltaic stations. However, these are small scale stations and are set up by physical persons for personal consumption.
To recall, in order to implement the second phase of the program "Promoting renewable energy", the German bank KfW together with the government of the Federal Republic of Germany provided loans to the Central Bank of Armenia in 2010 amounting to 18 million EUR and a grant of 1.5 million EUR. Within the framework of this stage of the program, 14 loans for the amount of 2.9 billion AMD, eight of which for the construction of small hydropower plants, and six for the modernization of operating small hydropower facilities, were provided. Prior to this, in November 2004, the Central Bank of Armenia and KfW Bank signed a loan agreement under the "Renewable Energy Development Assistance" program for 6 million EUR, and another 1.5 million EUR were provided in the form of a grant.