220 kW Estate-Distributed Install at a Cheshire Country Golf Hotel
- System size
- 220 kW
- Annual saving
- £52,000
- Payback
- 4.7 years
- Location
- Cheshire
The hotel
A 65-room country golf hotel in Cheshire with championship 18-hole course, leisure club with pool and spa, conference and banqueting facilities, and substantial wedding business (52 weddings/year at £55,000 average). Grade II listed Georgian main house, extensive unlisted estate buildings (clubhouse, stable blocks, modern conference extension, greenkeeping facility). Annual electricity spend £175,000.
The brief
Reduce energy cost on golf course infrastructure (golf clubhouse F&B, greenkeeping facility, irrigation pump), deploy lobby and clubhouse sustainability displays for wedding and corporate-events marketing, secure Listed Building Consent without touching the Grade II main house, structure capex through the operating limited company for AIA tax shield.
What we delivered
220 kW estate-distributed array: 120 kW on the modern conference extension roof, 60 kW on the golf clubhouse roof, 40 kW on the greenkeeping facility roof. Grade II main house roof entirely untouched. Listed Building Consent secured in 10 weeks for the conference extension (parallel-tracked with greenkeeping facility planning notification). Capital purchase with AIA tax shield through trading entity.
The numbers at year one
- Annual generation: 205,000 kWh
- Self-consumption: 90% (golf clubhouse F&B, leisure club, irrigation pump, conference space all daytime-aligned)
- Year-1 saving: £52,000
- Capex: £198,000 gross; £148,500 after AIA shield
- Effective payback: 2.9 years
- Wedding business close rate up 12% in 12 months following sustainability marketing deployment
- Corporate-events RFP win rate up 18% in following 12 months
- Green Tourism Gold certification secured
What the client said
“The golf course infrastructure load was higher than we expected — greenkeeping facility, irrigation, clubhouse — and the solar covered it efficiently. The combined wedding and corporate-events marketing return was the real story. The sustainability story closed more business in the first year than the energy saving.”