Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The criteria of the Municipality's call for access to funding dedicated to the replacement of heating systems have been updated

Milan, 14 August 2019 – 45% reduction in PM 10 and NOx concentrations, reduction of CO2 by 2030 and zero by 2050 through the progressive elimination of fossil fuels for "Carbon neutral" Milan. These are the objectives that the Administration intends to achieve also through the granting of increasingly targeted and effective contributions to private individuals for change. For this reason, in recent days the guidelines of the "Be 2018" tender for the granting of financing for works to improve the energy efficiency of private buildings have been renewed and further simplified.

Among the most important innovations, the renewal of the tender provides for the doubling of the economic contribution for those who switch from a heating system powered by fossil coal to district heating systems, heat pumps or "Carbon neutral" solar panels. Second novelty is the promotion of depaving interventions in private outdoor areas, to increase the filtering surface in the city, with a specific contribution to the creation of green roofs and walls as part of the European H2020 Clever cities project.

The range of beneficiaries of the contribution is expanding, and it is the third novelty: in addition to buildings used as private residences, hospitals, clinics, recreational and sporting activities; as regards green roofs and walls and the increase in unpaved surface, buildings used as offices are added, provided that access is guaranteed to employed personnel, and to commercial activities, provided that access to the public is guaranteed areas affected by the intervention.

“Improving air quality in Milan within defined stages – declares the councilor for Mobility and Public Works Marco Granelli, who has been promoting this type of tender for some time – is an important objective. To achieve the result it is also necessary to intervene on private homes which still have obsolete and high consumption systems and structures, both in terms of costs and polluting emissions. This is why we are providing relevant contributions and working to ensure that they are increasingly accessible and targeted. By participating in the updated tender of the Municipality of Milan, families can save up to 50-60 percent on their heating bills, invest in their home and actively contribute to the reduction of polluting dust emissions and the temperature of the planet which is increasingly a cause of climatic and meteorological disasters".

“These resources represent an important opportunity for many condominiums who, let us remember, for this type of intervention can also take advantage of the green bonus introduced by the Gentiloni government – ​​declares the councilor for Urban and Green Planning Pierfrancesco Maran -. Green roofs have a fundamental effect on reducing heat islands in cities; today in Milan we already have one million square meters of them and studies say that, without major works, 12 million could be added. Even in the Milan 2030 plan we are refining some tools that will accelerate this result."

Compared to the previous approach of the "Be2 2018" tender, each building is now given the opportunity to present a single modification or multiple modifications combined with each other in relation to four areas of intervention:

A. The envelope of the existing building or parts of it (installation of solar panels, photovoltaic or building automation of thermal and electrical systems).

B. Interventions on the existing heating system (replacement of oil-fired heat generators with natural gas or connections to the district heating network, replacement of fossil fuel generators with heat pumps or geothermal systems or solar panels).

C. The creation of green roofs and/or walls for condominium areas or office buildings, provided that access is guaranteed to employed personnel, and commercial buildings provided that access to the public is guaranteed.

D. The depaving of private external areas, such as courtyards, free from constructions, also connected to maintenance, rehabilitation, renovation or restoration interventions (for example in the case of the replacement of a hydrocarbon boiler and the elimination of the tank) without demolition and reconstruction. The tender will last until the financial resources made available by the administration are exhausted, with the exception of interventions to replace diesel boilers which must be submitted by 31 December 2020.

The Municipality's tender is financed with over 24 million euros (this is the same amount already assigned with the "Be2 2018"). The contribution is divided as follows: 40% for type A interventions; 53% for type B interventions; 5% and 2% for type C and D interventions respectively but the contributions can be added in the case of combined interventions.

Furthermore, in favor of the design of green roofs, a further 70 thousand euros are added (up to a maximum of 7 thousand euros for each intervention) guaranteed by the resources of Clever Cities, the European project relating to the creation and management of environmental, social and economic solutions for the urban regeneration for which the Municipality, together with the working group composed of Ambiente Italia AMAT, RFI, Fondazione Politecnico, WWF Ricerche e Progetti, Cooperativa Eliante, obtained funds in 2017.

To access the Clever Cities funds it will be necessary to start a co-planning process that involves the owners, the Municipalities and various users, in the phases of project definition, implementation, maintenance, management and use. The interventions must be located preferably to the south of the city, in synergy with the interventions also planned within the Clever Cities which will bring ecological connections and noise barriers along the railway line between San Cristoforo and Porta Romana.

The beneficiaries will also have to monitor the environmental benefits of the intervention and use plant species that have the ability to capture air pollutants and that guarantee biodiversity and ecological value. The roofs must be usable by the users of the building and have rainwater accumulation systems. The Administration will be able to build, following a suitable public notice, a list of designers with adequate know-how who can support, under the support of Clever partners, the subjects and operators interested in the creation of green roofs.

The "Be2 2018" call, which will now be improved, had already produced interesting results: to date, 77 applications have been received, of which 37 have been admitted, the others are being analysed. The interventions concern condominiums located in all nine municipalities, in particular for the disposal of obsolete oil boilers. Be2 is the second tender after Be1, closed in 2017 and financed with 1,6 million euros, which allowed the creation of around sixty interventions. In total, between 2017 and 2019, the Municipality of Milan made available over 32 million euros, 8 of these dedicated to mobility, to help the Milanese fight pollution, changing old polluting vehicles, choosing ways of more sustainable mobility and improve the energy efficiency of buildings.