Ryan Wray, Managing Director and Principal at Avison Young, Czech Republic, talked to Property Forum about the perils of today’s macroeconomic conditions investors may reckon with in their decision-making and looked at possible scenarios and working strategies for office occupiers in the Czech office market.

Pražská energetika (PRE), the Czech energy company, prepares massive investments in renewable energy sources. The company wants to decimate the capacity to reach 300 megawatts from its own "green" power plants by 2030. Therefore, the company has already planned several projects for the next three years, the Czech daily Seznamzpravy.cz reports.

Kid Group has kicked off the development of a new residential complex in northern Bucharest following an investment of €35 million. 

BIG Shopping Centers, Israel’s leading shopping center development group, announced the sealing of the first deal for the group’s energy branch. BIG Energia Holdings Kft., BIG Group’s wholly owned subsidiary, engaged in the agreement to acquire all the shares of a Romanian company which holds the rights for the wind turbines erection project in the Braila district of Romania. The project is planned to incorporate seventeen turbines, each of 6-Megawatt capacity, estimated to produce 102 MW in total.

Enel X Romania is implementing a photovoltaic (PV) system for retailer Kaufland Romania. The project is developed near the company’s logistics centre in Turda following an investment of €1 million. 

Economic progress inevitably brings increased demand for electric energy. In a historical context, coal-fuelled growth in the 19th century, oil facilitated the expansion of the global economy in the 20th century and data is stoking today’s economic progress. Data centres are the most rapidly growing segment of real estate and operating them requires an enormous amount of energy. Janusz Gutowski, CEO AXI IMMO Services at the AXI IMMO Group highlights the key issues around data centres’ demand for energy and explains what the alternative sources of energy for the sector are. 

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) has provided a loan worth €10 million to Garanti BBVA Consumer Finance. The funding will support residential investments in energy improvements and resource efficiency. 

Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH has kicked off the process of converting its European real estate portfolio to green energy. The Hamburg-based investment manager successfully implemented the new energy supply for the LEED Platinum-certified White House office building in the Hungarian capital of Budapest in partnership with operating costs expert Westbridge International AG. The move will cut the building’s carbon emissions by just under 2,700 tonnes within the next three years. The fully let building is part of an open-ended special alternative investment fund (AIF) managed by Warburg-HIH Invest.

The latest Property Talks event, organised virtually by RICS Hungary, focused on renewable and alternative energy sources and their role in the built environment. Eight real estate experts shared their insight on this topic in the form of six presentations and one panel discussion.

The SES-operated shopping centre Weberzeile located in Ried, Upper Austria, now generates its own environmentally friendly solar power, which is also the case at SES shopping centre Murpark in Graz. Last week, SES Spar European Shopping Centers commenced operation of a 520-kWp photovoltaic rooftop installation, which produces approximately 500,000 kilowatt-hours of clean electricity per year for its own use and reduces CO2 emissions by 128 tons. The photovoltaic system installed atop Weberzeile is the largest to be mounted by SES to date and is the benchmark for the installation of solar power systems on the roofs of other SES shopping centres throughout Austria.