The JSE-listed City Lodge Hotels group has invested about R20-million in solar energy at 25 of its hotels and is planning to expand the initiative to a further 12.
CEO Andrew Widegger said on Thursday each of the hotels will generate 30% of their total energy needs from solar and will lower the group’s overall energy consumption from non-renewable sources by about 10%.
Widegger said the payback from the investments made in solar is less than four years.
“So, bottom line wise, we are probably talking in the region of R2-million to R3-million in savings in the next six months,” he said.
Widegger said the group has refined the model and will apply all those insights when it looks at the next batch of about 12 hotels to get solar energy.
Chief financial officer Alastair Dooley said the solar energy facilities at all 25 hotels were completed between October and December last year and are all operational and generating electricity.
He said the energy produced is better than envisaged than in the feasibility study and the group will start seeing the benefits from that in the second half of its financial year to June through a reduction in the amount it pays Eskom for electricity.
- A fuller version of this article was originally published on Moneyweb