Small municipalities' superbonus throws the Conto termico 3.0 out of whack

Just under 1.3 billion requests, with a total of 3,333 files initiated. These are the gigantic numbers that led the Gse (Manager of Energy Services) to an unexpected decision yesterday morning: temporary suspension of the portal with a stop to new applications. Everything stopped, in short, just a few days after the activation of the Conto termico 3.0. Public administrations, businesses, and private individuals will not be able to send any more applications for several days, while waiting for the precise impact of this very quick start to be measured.

Yesterday morning, the Gse's official note read: "Following the high number of requests received in the first days of the Conto termico 3.0 portal's opening, the Gse communicates the temporary suspension of the presentation of new incentive requests". The counter, in fact, has reached precisely 1,298 million euro requested, especially for a measure that is one of the novelties of this edition of the subsidy: the one that offers municipalities with less than 15 thousand inhabitants incentives of up to 100% of eligible expenses for the energy requalification of public buildings. According to the deputy minister for the Environment and Energy Security, Vannia Gava, 85% of the applications received concern this type of intervention.

"The suspension," the note goes on to say, "is adopted as a precautionary measure to allow the GSE to carry out the preliminary investigation and verification of the applications already submitted, in compliance with the annual expenditure limits envisaged by the Ministerial Decree of 7 August 2025 and in order to guarantee the sustainability of the financial commitments. Here it must be remembered that the Conto termico has an availability of 900 million euros per year: 500 million to individuals and businesses and 400 million to the public administration. A maximum availability that, since the measure's inception, has never been consumed.

Now the objective of the Gse, in conjunction with Mase, is to verify this large mass of applications that has accumulated. Some of the applications, in fact, may not be eligible. Moreover, it is possible that not all of them will have a financial impact on 2026. Once this excavation and analysis work (which could take up to a couple of weeks) has been done, it will become clear which part of the available ceiling has actually been burnt. We will then consider how to move forward.

Theoretically, it is also possible that a share of the resources dedicated to businesses and individuals will be diverted to the Public Sector. This would be a resounding decision, since the new Conto termico has also been the subject of much attention from citizens, at a time whenthe home bonus have gradually become less generous.