Sandford Springs Hotel & Golf Club
Anesco helps hotel & golf club cut its carbon emissions and save thousands of pounds in energy costs every year.
Project Outline
The following forms part of a series of articles relating to solar panels for hotels and the leisure industry.
Set in 250 acres, Sandford Springs Hotel & Golf Club is situated between Newbury and Basingstoke in Hampshire. Owned by the Leaderboard Group, the four-star hotel comprises of 40 ensuite bedrooms, a club house restaurant and bar, and a formal dining room. A 27 hole-golf course is home to the club’s 500 strong annual members.
Solar cuts costs and carbon emissions
With energy costs a significant expense, the hotel was keen to find ways to reduce its expenditure and improve its energy efficiency, whilst taking positive action in support of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives. The company turned to Anesco who initially conducted a detailed site survey before putting forward a proposal for solar generated energy and a sophisticated system, Smartcool, to control heating and cooling within the hotel.
As the hotel is a popular wedding and hospitality venue it was extremely important that any installation work at the hotel was done without causing disruption to guests. Furthermore, the overall solution could not negatively impact the architectural style of the building or the picturesque surroundings.
No disruption to guests during installation Anesco designed, supplied, installed and commissioned a 100 panel, 28.08kWp, roof mounted solar PV solution to complement the style of the building. Anesco kept the installation process discrete by erecting scaffolding out of sight to both guests and club members, making use of a temporary scaffold tower when working on the front of the building, which was removed at the weekends.
Today the solar panels are generating over 27.5 MWh of renewable energy a year – equivalent to the power consumed by more than five detached houses, while saving over 14 tonnes of carbon annually. The hotel is not only benefiting from offsetting its electrical consumption with renewable energy but it is receiving payments through the government’s Feed in Tariff and any excess energy that is fed back into the grid.
The self-funded project has a projected payback period of just over 7.5 Years. The installation will be monitored and maintained for the next 20 years by Anesco’s in house operations and maintenance service, who use sophisticated software to monitor the performance of the panels in real time, ensuring that any problems or dips in output are quickly identified and rectified, so the panels continue to operate at their optimum capacity. The software is available as a smartphone app which Sandford Springs is using to access and analyse real time performance data and gain instant visibility of the savings.
Reaping further benefits with Smartcool
Following the successful completion of the project, Anesco has worked with the hotel on a second stage of upgrades to make further savings, including control system, Smartcool, which has been applied to several Mitsubishi Heat Pumps and various air conditioning units.
Smartcool is an energy efficiency system that works on air conditioning, refrigeration and heat pump systems. Since installing the Smartcool system there has been an impressive 31% reduction in energy, delivering further costs savings and environmental benefits to the hotel and club. Smartcool has been installed at three sites across the Leaderboard Group.
Project Results
- 27.5 MWh renewable energy generated annually
- £120,000 lifetime savings of the project
- 15 tonnes of carbon saved yearly
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Anesco kept us informed throughout every stage of the project and I can honestly say that they have been faultless at every stage.
They listened to our concerns before designing a solution that not only complements the architectural style of the building but delivers phenomenal savings and environmental benefits.
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