Sep 28, 2023

By: Amy Walker Split After 24 hours, the KfW Bank’s funding for “solar power for electric cars” has been exhausted. A bank IT breakdown makes many people angry and disappointed. Berlin – It was a rush with an announcement: within just 24 hours, the funding pot for the “solar filling stations” was completely empty. The solar company Soly estimates that there were 500 million euros in the KfW Bank pot, enough for around 60,000 PV systems. The first 300 million euros of this are now gone. But for the KfW Bank and the Ministry of Transport, the start of the application process was anything but smooth. The development bank’s application portal was overwhelmed all day long, and at times the system was not accessible at all. It’s not surprising that many people who didn’t get anything in the end are annoyed. Rush for KfW funding: disappointment over IT breakdown “I was one of the desperate people who tried to apply for funding all day from the start. I tried to submit an application at least 30 times, as recommended by repeating or starting over, and it always failed after entering the data in the subsidy calculation and/or at the end when sending the application, each time due to a reported technical malfunction on the website. a reader writes to us about his experience yesterday. “In the end I wasn’t successful.” This reader is anything but alone: ​​Many users voice their frustration on social media, such as the short message service X, formerly Twitter. “Great job, a lottery would have been fairer,” said one user. Another: “I tried in vain to apply for KfW funding for a PV system for seven hours. Applying online via KfW is an absolute joke, the server has been completely overloaded since this morning, the form has been filled out about 20 times, sent 300 times, 300 errors.” So it wasn’t a good day for KfW. Accordingly, the bank also spoke up on X to defend itself. “The program was so popular from the very first minute that the funds approved by the ministry for this year amounting to 300 million euros were exhausted at around 1:40 a.m. “The ministry plans to make a further 200 million euros available next year,” the bank tries to reassure. In the end, around 33,000 applications were approved before the stop was announced. “From the opening of the program in the morning until 6 p.m., over 190,000 visitors were recorded, including over 100,000 visitors in the first three hours of the application launch alone,” the bank continued. However, she didn’t write anything about the IT problems. Rush for solar funding was predictable But the question many now ask is: could the ministry and KfW Bank have foreseen the onslaught? And if so, can you and your IT better prepare for it? At least experts warned in advance that the program would be popular. In a press release, the provider Soly, for example, writes that they have been advising their customers for weeks and knew that there would be many applications. “Even before the official launch, Soly had warned that the funding could be quickly sold out,” said the company. When asked, the company said that its customers were now also very disappointed: “Less than 25 percent of our customers have successfully applied for the funding.” Solar modules are set up at a company’s stand at the Intersolar trade fair. © Sven Hoppe/dpa KfW also had to stop applications for other funding programs after just a few hours. At the beginning of 2022, a funding program for energy-efficient new buildings ran dry within hours – for the second time in a row. However, no IT problems were reported at the time, so there may have been less of an uproar as a result.