Powering ahead

Energy procurement in the real estate sector has, of late, become rather a heated topic – if you’ll pardon the pun. There seem to be two main reasons for this: the increased need and legal requirements for the decarbonisation of the energy supplied to buildings, and the cost of sourcing the energy supplied to them in an increasingly unstable environment for energy prices. These factors poses a very real challenge for property managers and owners faced with fulfilling ESG obligations and optimising costs. But a new form of energy procurement could well be the solution to both issues going forward – the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Indeed, the first such PPAs have already been signed by landlords operating in the Polish commercial real estate market. At the end of January, GTC announced that it had secured a three-year agreement with Ekovoltis for the latter to supply all its office buildings and shopping centres in Poland with 62 pct renewable energy directly from wind and sol