Around 1.5 million tons of CO2 saved per year: CEE Group portfolio surpasses the 100 project milestone

• 101 renew­able ener­gy projects: The CEE Group’s port­fo­lio now com­pris­es a total of 54 solar parks and 47 wind parks with a total capac­i­ty of 1.9 GW
• Total out­put increased by 25 per­cent: CEE Group expands capac­i­ty of its renew­able ener­gy projects to 1.9 gigawatts
• CEE Group’s assets under man­age­ment rise to over 2.6 bil­lion euros: Eighth CEE Group Renew­able Fund to reach tar­get vol­ume of 750 mil­lion euros
• More effi­cien­cy for the exist­ing port­fo­lio: CEE Group will suc­ces­sive­ly triple the capac­i­ty of its sites with repow­er­ing and hybridiza­tion

The CEE Group has reached an impor­tant mile­stone in its renew­able ener­gy port­fo­lio: With the acqui­si­tion of an 80.9 MWp solar park in Bran­den­burg, the port­fo­lio of the Ham­burg-based asset man­ag­er spe­cial­iz­ing in renew­able ener­gies now com­pris­es 101 projects. The 54 solar parks and 47 wind parks reached a total out­put of 1.9 gigawatts at the begin­ning of the year. This cor­re­sponds to an increase of around 35 per­cent com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. This means that the CEE Group can sup­ply 885,300 house­holds — the equiv­a­lent of a city the size of Munich — with green ener­gy and thus help to avoid almost 1.5 mil­lion tons of CO2 emis­sions per year. One of the most impor­tant addi­tions to the CEE Group’s port­fo­lio last year was the com­mis­sion­ing of a solar park in Döllen. With an out­put of 154 MWp, the project is cur­rent­ly the third-largest solar site in Ger­many. In addi­tion, the CEE Group was able to expand its port­fo­lio in Spain to over 200 MWp last year.

Detlef Schreiber, CEO of the CEE Group, com­ments on the pos­i­tive devel­op­ment: “Last year alone, we invest­ed around 400 mil­lion euros in the expan­sion of our port­fo­lio. The ener­gy tran­si­tion is an impor­tant build­ing block for achiev­ing the Euro­pean CO2 tar­gets. With our port­fo­lio and our funds, we are cre­at­ing lucra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties for insti­tu­tion­al investors to par­tic­i­pate in this. The inflow of cap­i­tal into our funds also shows that there is demand.” Last year, the CEE Group was able to increase its assets under man­age­ment from 2.3 to 2.6 bil­lion euros. It was only in Decem­ber that the CEE Group launched its eighth renew­able ener­gy fund, the CEE Renew­able Fund 8 (CEE RF 8), as a closed-end AIF for insti­tu­tion­al investors with a planned vol­ume of EUR 750 mil­lion.

The CEE Group intends to con­tin­ue on its growth path. The asset man­ag­er plans to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the total out­put of its man­aged port­fo­lio of renew­able ener­gy projects to 2.5 gigawatts by the end of 2024. In the next five years, the capac­i­ty is even set to more than triple to 6.0 MW. The com­pa­ny is also break­ing new ground: “We are increas­ing­ly focus­ing on repow­er­ing in the fur­ther devel­op­ment of our port­fo­lio. We have been able to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase our pro­duc­tion capac­i­ties in recent years through cor­re­spond­ing mea­sures at sev­en loca­tions,” says Detlef Schreiber. “We are also increas­ing­ly focus­ing on hybridiza­tion, for exam­ple sup­ple­ment­ing wind farms with solar and stor­age projects. These approach­es have numer­ous advan­tages. For exam­ple, less new land is required. Our investors also ben­e­fit from syn­er­gies, as parts of the exist­ing infra­struc­ture can con­tin­ue to be used.” By repow­er­ing and hybridiz­ing exist­ing parks and acquir­ing addi­tion­al lucra­tive assets, the CEE Group aims to suc­ces­sive­ly increase the total out­put of its port­fo­lios by up to 200 per­cent.

The asset man­ag­er has con­tin­u­ous­ly expand­ed the nec­es­sary tech­ni­cal exper­tise in recent years. Last year alone, the CEE Group expand­ed its work­force from 80 to 110 employ­ees — the com­pa­ny had already cre­at­ed its own team for the fur­ther devel­op­ment of the exist­ing port­fo­lio, which con­sists of expe­ri­enced project devel­op­ers. “We are con­vinced that we can only oper­ate our port­fo­lio of renew­able ener­gy projects opti­mal­ly for our investors if we have the nec­es­sary tech­ni­cal exper­tise in-house,” says Detlef Schreiber. “We man­age many of our sites inde­pen­dent­ly. This has enabled us to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the avail­abil­i­ty and there­fore the yields of our plants. Last year, our over­all port­fo­lio even gen­er­at­ed 5 per­cent more green ener­gy than expect­ed. This is also a suc­cess for our tech­ni­cal team.”