ziwa Group puts more weight on electric mobility

For around thirty years the ziwa Group has been one of the established developers and operators of commercial property in Austria. At the centre of it are the ten ziwa parks in Lower Austria, which bring local supply, shopping, food and modern infrastructure together at easily reachable locations. The family business concentrates on facility management, asset management and centre management of its own retail parks.

From now on ENIO will run all the charge points at the ziwa parks. ENIO provides the backend, roaming, card payment, monitoring and the technical operation. The charging infrastructure of the ziwa parks becomes more professional technically, operationally and from the user's point of view.

For visitors this creates something genuinely useful in everyday life: do the shopping, run errands, stop for a while — and charge the car quickly while you are there.

Why retail parks are ideal places for charge points

Retail parks lend themselves particularly well to publicly accessible charging infrastructure. Visitors usually stay long enough for a meaningful charging session while they shop. Charging happens alongside a visit that was planned anyway and therefore costs no extra waiting time.

The ziwa parks have taken up that idea with the principle “shopping time is charging time”. Anyone shopping at the retail park can put the parking time to good use and drive on with more range.

For retail locations, charging infrastructure thus becomes an important factor in its own right. Alongside parking, good access and attractive tenants, the ability to charge quickly matters more and more. For electric drivers in particular, modern rapid chargers raise the appeal of a location considerably.

Solar power makes charging infrastructure more economical

A central advantage of the ziwa parks is the extensive use of photovoltaics on the roofs of the retail centres. ziwa produces solar power exactly where it is needed: at its own retail locations, close to the shops, the parking areas and the charge points.

For the charging infrastructure that is an important commercial lever. The solar power produced locally can go straight to the fast chargers. Green electricity is not only generated, it is turned directly into a concrete mobility offer.

That can bring advantages for customers as well. When electricity is produced cheaply on site, ad-hoc charging rates can be made more attractive. Low charging prices raise the use of the infrastructure, make the ziwa parks more relevant for electric drivers and strengthen footfall at the locations at the same time.

Retail parks offer ideal conditions for this: large roof areas, many parking spaces, high daily footfall and a natural need to charge while shopping.

ziwa Energie GmbH brings photovoltaics, charging and the energy community together

ziwa sees energy not merely as an addition to the property but as a strategic business area of its own. The central energy topics have therefore been brought together in ziwa Energie GmbH.

These include photovoltaics, charging infrastructure, energy communities and energy-related site management. The ziwa parks are developing from pure retail locations into decentralised energy and mobility locations.

Surplus solar power is not only sold through the charging infrastructure. With its own citizens' energy community, ziwa nova, ziwa uses a further model to put green electricity to sensible use. The electricity generated can therefore also be made available to shop partners and commercial customers across Austria. Information about the community can be found here.

What emerges for ziwa is an integrated energy model: electricity is produced on its own roofs, used to run the sites, sold to electric drivers through the charging infrastructure and additionally made available through the energy community. That raises the economics of the solar plants and strengthens the ziwa Group's role in sustainable energy supply.

Why ziwa chose fast chargers of at least 120 kW

The ziwa parks deliberately use powerful rapid charging technology. The reason lies in how people typically use a retail park. Many visitors do not stay for several hours but shop with a purpose, visit a few shops or take a short break.

ziwa therefore relies on fast chargers of at least 120 kW. Even a short stay then produces a noticeable gain in range. While AC charge points suit long standing times, rapid chargers fit the way people visit a retail park.

At 120 kW, ziwa strikes the right balance between investment, charging speed and commercial return: the charge points are powerful enough for short, attractive sessions while remaining in an efficient cost-benefit ratio for the operator.

Locations near a motorway make rapid charging even more useful

The model is particularly strong at locations close to a motorway. Retail parks near major traffic routes combine regional supply with through traffic. They address two groups at once: people from the surrounding area and electric drivers on longer journeys.

On a longer trip, charging power is decisive. A short stop has to be enough to take on the range needed to drive on. Fast chargers of at least 120 kW meet that expectation.

For users this creates clear value. Instead of waiting at a bare charge point, they can use the time for shopping, a coffee, a comfort break or a quick errand. For ziwa, modern rapid chargers raise the appeal of the location, strengthen footfall and position the ziwa parks as mobility locations with a future, including outside normal shop opening hours.

Julia Klingelmüller, owner and managing director of the ziwa Group

“With the ziwa parks we have always pursued one aim: to create retail locations that are easy to reach, practical to use and fit for the long term. Electric mobility is the logical next step for us. Our large photovoltaic plants, our own energy community and the powerful fast chargers let us put sustainable energy to good use right at the site.

In ENIO we have a partner who not only runs the charging infrastructure technically but also gives us the transparency we need to develop our locations further. Through the backend we see how the charge points are used, which sites are in particularly high demand and how charging behaviour and revenue develop. On that basis we can plan further expansion deliberately and keep adapting what we offer to what our visitors need.

It matters a great deal to us that charging simply works. Thanks to ENIO's large roaming network, customers can charge with every common charging card. The card payment solution adds uncomplicated access for anyone stopping at a ziwa park spontaneously or while passing through. In this way we bring shopping, mobility and sustainable energy together into something that creates real value for our locations and our visitors. That leaves us well prepared for the planned expansion of charging infrastructure at our sites.”

Thomas Dieringer, investor at ENIO

“The partnership between ziwa and ENIO rests on mutual trust and on a shared understanding of how modern charging infrastructure has to work: reliable in operation, simple for the user, commercially sound and efficient for the site operator.

The ziwa parks bring ideal conditions for that. They have busy retail centres, large photovoltaic plants, a clear energy strategy and locations that are particularly relevant for electric mobility. ENIO adds the technical platform, the roaming network, the card payment solution, transparency in the backend and a central support model — everything a professional, scalable operation needs.

For us this cooperation is a strong example of how charging infrastructure, renewable energy and retail locations can be brought together sensibly. What is decisive is not only the technology but above all the shared long-term direction. It is exactly that trust which makes the partnership between ziwa and ENIO so valuable.”

In short: the ziwa parks become modern energy and mobility locations

The cooperation between ENIO and the ziwa Group shows how retail parks are developing. They are no longer only places to shop; they are becoming hubs for supply, energy and mobility.

The combination of photovoltaic plants, cheap electricity from the site, an energy community of its own, fast chargers of at least 120 kW, a large roaming network, card payment and professional operation by ENIO makes the ziwa parks attractive places to charge. On top of that, ziwa raises the economics of the charging infrastructure through the GHG quota, which ENIO settles entirely automatically. Alongside the direct sale of charging energy, that creates a further building block of revenue and makes the operating model more attractive still.

Even on a short visit, people can take on range and combine charging with shopping or errands. For ziwa a data-driven operating model emerges as well. Because revenue and charging sessions are visible in the backend, the infrastructure can be analysed, optimised and extended continuously.

At locations near a motorway in particular, this creates a model with a future: easy to reach, with existing footfall, cheap solar power, simple payment and powerful rapid charging. A charging break becomes a stay worth having, and a retail park becomes a modern location for sustainable mobility.

Further information about the ziwa Group and its individual business areas can be found here.