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Whitbread has opened Premier Inn Swindon Town Centre, the first of a new generation of new-build hotels that will operate with 100% renewable energy.
Learnings from the hotel’s design and operation will inform an emissions-reducing strategy for Premier Inn’s hotel estate across the UK and Ireland.
The new hotel opening will contribute to Whitbread’s target to remove mains gas connections across its estate by 2040 wherever possible.
The hotel’s innovative features include an energy-efficient air-to-water Mitsubishi Q-Ton CO2 Heat Pump to heat water, low energy LED lighting with lighting controls and metering connected to a battery monitoring system with auto monitoring and targeting of energy use.
It also features solar photovoltaic panels installed on-site, with the hotel to purchase only renewable electricity from the grid – in line with all of Whitbread’s owned operations in the UK and Germany.
As a result, Premier Inn, Swindon Town Centre, has been shortlisted for ‘Built Environment Project of the Year’ in Edie’s Net Zero Awards.
Richard Aldread, head of construction UK&I for Whitbread, said: “Swindon’s 100% renewably powered Premier Inn shows that sustainability and affordability can be two sides of the same coin and is part of a string of investments in innovative, sustainable properties at Whitbread.
“We have ambitious plans to expand the number of Premier Inn bedrooms towards our long-term potential of 125,000 rooms in the UK and Ireland, up from 83,500 currently, and this should not happen at the expense of net zero commitments.”
In addition to the environmental benefits of the new development, the Premier Inn Swindon Town Centre hotel opens its doors with 46 team members employed, many of whom were recruited from the local area and were out of work before joining Whitbread.
As they readied the hotel for opening, the team undertook over 160 hours of volunteer work with the Salvation Army in Swindon to tidy, replant and repaint the gardens, workshop and emergency accommodation at Booth House in the town.
