Prague is to receive 1.7 billion for electric buses from the National Recovery Plan, billions will go to charging stations

For the first time, subsidies should also go to the purchase of electric cargo bikes; on the contrary, support for new trains has been dropped.

Dopravní podnik hl. m of Prague (DPP) should receive a subsidy from the so-called National Renewal (NPO) in the coming years for the purchase of up to 220 electric buses and hybrid buses worth 1.7 billion crowns. Up to seven billion crowns is to go from the NPO to the so-called net mobility. In addition to public transport, additional money will go mainly to infrastructure management and subsidies for the purchase of vehicles, including, for example, truck electric bicycles.

This follows from a draft document they posted on their site Pirates. The material also reveals the history of modifications, in which a very strong gas lobby is evident. In the end, it unsuccessfully tried to stop the support of CNG and LNG vehicles in pure mobility. In the basic parameters it talks about i new website Ministry of Industry to the National Recovery Plan.

The Clean Mobility Program is so far the only one in the field of transport where there is at least a more accurate overview of the planned measures. This is a measure drawn up by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The section entitled Sustainable and Safe Transport is in charge of the Ministry of Transport. The national recovery plan is not yet complete. It is due to be fully approved by the government in April.

This will be a major breakthrough for Prague: the DPP still has European subsidies, unlike other transport companies. He could not draw due to too high economic maturity of the capital and the setting of other programs. At the beginning of February, DPP announced the victory of Škoda Electric in the competition for thirteen electric buses. Prague expects that a significant part of diesel buses will be gradually replaced by electric buses and hybrids.

Charging station and truck wheel

Support for the construction of four hydrogen refillers, 2,354 public charging points, 33 charging points for public transport, 1,940 non-public charging points, construction of charging infrastructures for residential buildings (minimum 2,880), municipalities, regions, state administration is to be included in seven billion crowns and the institutions established by them (835). It is expected to support at least 3,106 vehicles with alternative propulsion for entrepreneurs, including a thousand cargo e-bikes and 2102 vehicles for municipalities, regions and state administration.

The National Recovery Plan is a condition for drawing money from the new European Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). It is the largest instrument in the EU’s Next Generation EU Recovery Plan (NGEU). State aid aims to address the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic and ensure that economies recognize ecological and digital transformation and become more sustainable.

On the contrary, the planned two-billion support for the purchase of new trains completely dropped out of the program, which we announced earlier in the text about the reduction in the volume of allocation to transport. “In a word, disappointment. The government has decided to support non-ecological modes of transport and to literally put the railways, in which, according to many European countries and the future of the world, the world is on its way. We will feel the consequences of this decision very hard in a few years,“Commented on Twitter the decision of the Association of the Czech Railway Industry ACRI.