Industries

Solar for Pubs, Hotels and Hospitality Venues

Guide · Commercial solar & battery · ~5 min read

Hospitality runs long hours and cops some of the biggest power bills going, from the cool room to the kitchen to the air con. Solar, paired with a battery, can take a real bite out of those costs while keeping the venue comfortable and the beer cold.

Why hospitality venues are a good fit for solar

Hospitality is an energy-hungry game. Refrigeration and cool rooms run around the clock, kitchens fire up for every service, and air conditioning works hard across the dining room, bar and guest areas. That steady, all-day load is exactly what solar is built to offset.

Because so much of your consumption happens while the sun is up, a well-sized rooftop system can cover a meaningful chunk of daytime demand. The exact split depends on your roof, your equipment and your tariff, which is why a site review matters more than any rule of thumb.

• Cool rooms and fridges that never switch off
• Kitchen equipment through lunch and dinner service
• Air conditioning across bar, dining and accommodation
• Lighting, AV and pumps running well into the night

The evening problem, and where batteries come in

Here's the catch for pubs and hotels: your busiest, most power-hungry hours are often after the sun goes down. Solar alone can't help you there, which is where a battery earns its keep.

A battery stores your surplus solar during the day and releases it when the venue is packed and grid power is at its dearest. For hospitality, that evening cover can be significant, though how much you save comes down to your tariff and network.

AI energy arbitrage for smarter savings

This is where we do things differently. Our AI-driven energy arbitrage lets a battery charge when power is cheap and discharge or export when it's expensive, working your tariff to your advantage automatically.

For a venue with a long trading day and shifting demand, that kind of automated buying and selling can add up. It quietly optimises in the background while you focus on running the floor.

Practical things to plan around a working venue

A pub or hotel can't shut the doors for an install, so the work has to fit around your trade. Our in-house team handles the lot end to end, no subcontractors, which keeps timing and quality under one roof.

We'll look at roof space and structure, switchboard capacity, and how your refrigeration and HVAC loads behave through the day and night before recommending anything.

• Roof condition, orientation and available space
• Switchboard and electrical capacity for the system
• How your loads shift between day trade and evening peak
• Scheduling install work to avoid disrupting service

Sized for your venue, from small bars to large hotels

Every hospitality site is different, so systems shouldn't be one-size-fits-all. We scale from a modest 6.6kW setup for a small venue right up to MW-scale installations for large hotels and multi-site operators.

We work across commercial and residential projects Australia-wide, and we're CEC and SAA accredited. Recent commercial work includes a 415kW rooftop at DB Santasalo in Bulli NSW, plus projects for Garmin, Goldschmidt, a Hunter Valley vineyard and Kingswood.

Next step: a site review

Real numbers for your venue come from looking at your roof, your equipment and your actual power bills, not from a generic estimate. Savings vary by site, tariff and network, and this isn't financial advice.

If you run a pub, hotel or hospitality venue and want to know what solar and a battery could do for your bottom line, get in touch for a site review and we'll map out the options.

More: browse all guides · see our projects