The Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria Graça Carvalho, has announced that the government will launch a new program that will support the purchase of more energy-efficient appliances, especially for more vulnerable families. Registration starts in April.

"We have around 20% of the population living in energy poverty. The indicators we have, for example, of the social rate of electricity are around 800 thousand people. We will help make this transition, so that homes are more comfortable, have appliances that consume less, and are electric", said Maria Graça Carvalho, in an interview with Renascença.

According to the authority, individual homes or condominiums and housing complexes can be covered with the aim of "giving 'critical mass' to the program and reducing the number of applications".

The Government wants to avoid the avalanche of reimbursement requests under the More Sustainable Buildings program, which is about to end and supported the purchase of more energy-efficient windows: "This has to be very well designed and that is what we are doing so that the same thing that [happened] in the case of windows does not happen. People cannot apply individually so we do not have 200,000 or 300,000 applications."

Therefore, this program will not have applications directed directly to the Environmental Fund. They will be through local authorities, IPSS and the new Energy Spaces. The minister says they will be the "facilitating points" of the new program.

"The program itself will finance the focal point, which will then help to make the applications and provide some guidance on how to execute them", revealed Maria Graça Carvalho, in statements to the same radio station.

The minister also promised that by the end of April, all those who submitted applications for reimbursement of expenses under the efficient windows program will receive a response from the Environmental Fund.