Avisford Park Hotel invests £300,000 in solar and battery storage to cut carbon and control energy costs

Avisford Park Hotel, set in 89 acres of parkland between Chichester and Arundel, has completed a £300,000 investment in a solar PV and battery storage system, as rising energy costs and growing guest expectations around sustainability continue to reshape the hospitality sector.

A former Georgian manor house, Avisford Park Hotel has 140 bedrooms, a restaurant, a lounge and leisure facilities including an 18-hole golf course, indoor pool and fitness suite. The hotel also has 12 event spaces, from meeting rooms for 12, up to the Grand Hall, which holds up to 350 guests for theatre and banquet events. It is located minutes from Arundel Castle, the South Downs National Park and Arundel town centre, and hosts events for the local community throughout the year.

Working with the hotel’s team, renewable energy specialist, Novalux Solar, designed, supplied and installed the system, which comprises 308 DAS Solar 590W N-Type Bifacial panels mounted East/West at 20 degrees on an Esdec Flatfix Fusion system, covering 796m² of a previously redundant tennis court. The installation also includes two Solis S6-EH3P50K-H-EU hybrid inverters and two Dyness BF100-C100 outdoor battery cabinets, providing 200kWh of storage capacity.

As the hotel’s electricity usage does not align with peak sunshine hours, the battery storage is critical to ensuring the energy generated can be used on site when needed, maximising self-consumption and reducing reliance on grid supply. For energy-intensive sites like hotels, solar and battery storage address two challenges at once: reducing carbon in a traceable way and converting unpredictable overheads into a reduced and predictable cost. 

Once fully operational, the 163.24kWp solar PV and battery storage system is expected to generate around 161,000kWh of clean electricity a year, cutting the hotel’s carbon emissions by an estimated 33 tonnes annually. Over the system’s 25-year lifespan, that equates to several hundred tonnes of CO2 avoided, a measurable reduction rather than an offset.

Spread across its full 25-year output, the cost of electricity from the installation works out at 5.88p per unit, significantly below current and forecast grid rates and fixed for the life of the system.

Jason Hiley, Managing Director of Crest Hotels Limited, said: “The hospitality industry is facing increasing pressure from rising energy costs, amongst many other challenges, whilst guests quite rightly expect businesses to demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainability. 

“This £300,000 investment at Avisford Park Hotel shows that environmental responsibility and commercial resilience can go hand in hand. By generating our own renewable electricity and incorporating battery storage, we are reducing our reliance on the grid, lowering our carbon emissions and creating greater certainty around one of our largest operating costs. It’s an investment that will benefit our guests, our business and the wider environment for many years to come, and reflects Crest Hotels’ commitment to investing in a more sustainable future.”

For more information on the Avisford Park hotel visit www.avisfordparkhotel.com