600 kW Install on a 280-Room Midlands Conference Hotel
- System size
- 600 kW
- Annual saving
- £140,000
- Payback
- 3.6 years
- Location
- West Midlands
The hotel
A 280-room independent conference and convention hotel in the West Midlands with substantial corporate-events business (40% of annual revenue), full-service F&B, leisure facilities, and 24/7 operation. Annual electricity spend £620,000. Owner-operator with strong sustainability commitment driven by corporate-events RFP demands.
The brief
Deploy a large-scale rooftop solar array to materially reduce operating cost and generate the venue sustainability evidence pack needed for major corporate-events RFPs (FTSE 100 firms, Big 4 accounting, major law firms).
What we delivered
600 kW rooftop array across the property’s three accommodation blocks plus the conference centre roof. 1,100 Tier-1 JA Solar 545W panels, central inverters with full monitoring integration. UPS coordination with the conference centre AV infrastructure to prevent frequency-sync trips during peak generation. Capital purchase with AIA tax shield + 50% FYA above the £1m AIA cap.
The numbers at year one
- Annual generation: 555,000 kWh
- Self-consumption: 93%
- Year-1 saving: £140,000
- Capex: £510,000 gross; £382,500 after AIA + FYA shield
- Effective payback: 2.7 years
- Corporate-events RFP win rate up 22% in following 12 months
- BREEAM In-Use rating improved by one band