Solar for hospitality sites with an evening peak

Hospitality has one of the more awkward load shapes in commercial property. Generation peaks around the middle of the day. Kitchens, bars and restaurants pull hardest from late afternoon into the evening, when output is falling away and then gone.

What solar does cover comfortably is the constant daytime background: refrigeration, cellar cooling, ventilation, ice machines, comfort cooling, lighting in function rooms and all of the preparation that happens before service. In a hotel, add housekeeping, lifts, pool and spa plant and the hot water system, all of which run through the day.

That background is often larger than operators expect, which is why hospitality sites usually do better than the evening peak alone would suggest. But the peak has to be addressed honestly, and there are only two levers: move load into the generating window, or store generation and release it later.

The cheapest intervention on a hospitality site is usually scheduling rather than equipment. Hotel laundry is the clearest example. Where it is done in house, it is a substantial electrical and hot water load, and it is frequently run in the evening out of habit because that is when linen arrives.

Moving it into the middle of the day costs nothing but a change to the housekeeping rota, and it converts low value exported generation into avoided import at your own unit rate. Dishwashing, deep cleaning, pool heating cycles and hot water reheat can often be shifted in the same way.

Where load genuinely cannot move, storage does the job instead: charging through the day and discharging from around four in the afternoon into the service peak. Whether it pays depends on the size of the evening load and the tariff, and it should be modelled against half hourly data rather than assumed.

The three parts of this sector behave differently enough that a single approach does not fit them.

A hotel has continuous occupancy, night lighting and hot water, plant that never stops, and in many cases a pool or spa with a heavy constant load. It has the best self consumption profile in hospitality and usually the most roof, given the footprint. Guest EV charging is now close to an expectation rather than a differentiator, and daytime destination charging aligns well with generation.

A restaurant is concentrated into service periods with a large kitchen load and often a small roof over a leased unit, which makes tenure the harder question. A pub sits in between, with cellar cooling as a genuinely constant load, longer daytime trading at the food led end, and frequently an older or listed building where the roof is the constraint.

Coastal, rural and tourism led sites have a helpful coincidence: the array generates most in exactly the months the site is busiest. That improves the case relative to a business with flat year round demand.

Sites that close over winter or trade at very low occupancy should be modelled on their actual trading calendar rather than an annual average, because an average will overstate the value of the generation. The same applies to seasonal function and wedding business, which concentrates heavy evening load into particular months.

Building constraints bite harder here than in most sectors. A great deal of hospitality stock is historic, listed or in a conservation area, where panels on visible elevations are usually resisted. The workable answers are rear facing pitches, flat roofs behind parapets, outbuildings, function room and kitchen extensions, and car park canopies, all of which keep the array away from the principal elevation. Listed building consent needs allowing for in the programme where it applies.

Nobody is going to close a hotel for a roof project, and the programme has to reflect that. Scaffolding and access routes are agreed to avoid the guest approach, deliveries and crane lifts are scheduled outside peak arrival and departure times, and noisy activity is confined to agreed hours away from bedrooms in use.

The only genuine interruption is the connection at the main switchboard, typically a matter of hours, planned for the quietest period in the week and communicated to guests in advance. Function bookings and events are worked around rather than through.

NRG Solar does not install. We assess your site, produce indicative figures from your own spend, trading pattern and roof outline, and match you with one vetted installer working in your area with hospitality experience. The service is free to you and the installer pays us only if the work proceeds, which is why we will tell you when a small leased restaurant roof is not worth the exercise.