Government appeals to Poles to insulate their homes ahead of “difficult winter”

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has appealed to Poles to insulate their homes ahead of what he says will be a “difficult” heating season amid rising energy prices.

“Today, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, energy price rises are particularly noticeable,” said Morawiecki during a visit to the village of Boronów yesterday. “It will definitely be a difficult autumn, it will be a difficult winter. Putin made sure of it. All of Europe realised how wrong their policies were

“Try to insulate your homes as much as possible before this heating season,” he advised. “We know that the houses we live in need to be insulated.”

During the same speech, the prime minister also declared that the government would be “allocating further billions” to its Clean Air Programme, which provides subsidies to homeowners to help them better insulate as well as to buy cleaner, more efficient modern heating systems.

Morawiecki promised that, under a new edition of the programme to be launched from tomorrow, 15 July, people would be able to receive up to half of the subsidies up front, before work begins. He said that overall, financing of up to 90% of costs, to a maximum of 79,000 zloty (€16,400), would be available.

Taking advantage of the programme offers a “two in one” benefit, said the prime minister: it is both “favourable for the environment” and “reduces the cost of bills”.

In recent months, energy commodity prices have skyrocketed due to increased demand following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. In the case of coal, the price has risen from an average of nearly 1,000 zloty (€208) per tonne in 2021 to more than 3,000 zloty now.

Given that around 35% of Poles burn coal to heat their homes, that has led to fears of widespread energy poverty when temperatures drop later this year.

In response, the government has introduced a guaranteed maximum price for coal being used for home heating and has temporarily suspended quality standards for the burning of coal to heat homes.

Morawiecki’s latest remarks, however, attracted criticism from some quarters, with commentators pointing out that there is not enough time, human resources and materials for Poles to successfully follow his advice before the autumn.

Andrzej Guła, head of Kraków Smog Alarm, an organisation working to improve air quality, noted that government subsidies are now much less helpful due to rampant inflation. “Today, for the same money we insulate half as much wall space as we did two years ago,” he tweeted.

Journalist Patryk Michalski of Wirtualna Polska reported today that the price of graphite polystyrene, which is often used for home insulation, increased at some wholesalers following Morawiecki’s speech.

Meanwhile, opposition figures mocked the government for offering advice rather than solutions, after President Andrzej Duda recently said that people should “grit their teeth” through the period of high inflation and a deputy minister suggested Poles could collect firewood in forests to help heat their homes.

“It was supposed to be a government of a  ‘good change’,” said Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, a deputy leader of Civic Platform (PO), the largest opposition party, referring to a slogan of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. “But it is a government of ‘good advice’.”

“Grit your teeth, gather firewood, heat your homes for the winter – in other words, cope on your own,” she wrote. “These are PiS’s prescriptions for the serious problems awaiting Poles.”

Main image credit: Kancelaria Premiera/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.