Tunisia’s government has extended the incentive and low-interest loan scheme PROSOL to 2016. The latest contract between the Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas, STEG, and the Tunisian Attijari Bank ensures loan repayment for solar water heater purchases between 2012 and 2016. It grants users of solar water heaters five years to pay back the loan through their monthly STEG electricity bill. The electricity bill payment is the key success factor of the financial scheme PROSOL, because it is a fairly reliable way of refinancing the thousands of loans. The chart above shows the residential collector area which profited from PROSOL subsidies and loans each year.
Figure: ANME

Tarun Kapoor, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in India, had invited all channel partners of the federal incentive programme to a meeting in New Delhi on 31 January 2013. Out of the 68 partners, 42 followed the invitation to discuss the pending subsidy payments and the targets in fiscal year 2013/2014. Kapoor assured that all subsidy claims would be settled as soon as possible. He set the target for 2013-2014 at a newly installed collector area of 2 million m² (see the attached report). “This ambitious target will generate a sense of confidence for future business activities in the Indian solar thermal sector,” the Joint Secretary said at the meeting.