Whitbread has opened its first all-electric Premier Inn hotel, situated in the Wiltshire town of Swindon.
The 195-room Premier Inn Swindon Town Centre Centre is powered entirely by renewable electricity, with no connection to the mains gas supply, with sustainable initiatives including solar panels, an energy-efficient air-to-water Mitsubishi Q-Ton CO2 Heat Pump to heat water, and low energy LED lighting with lighting controls.
Metering is also connected to a battery monitoring system with auto monitoring and targeting of energy use, and the building envelope has been designed to meet BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standards, using Passivhaus-influenced ‘fabric first’ design to optimise energy use.
Whitbread says that all new-build Premier Inns will be built without connection to the mains gas supply from 2026, and is also targeting 100 per cent renewable electricity being purchased across the entire Whitbread estate by the same year (where possible).
The group’s Net Zero Transition Plan also includes a commitment to remove mains gas supply from over 800 Premier Inn properties by 2040, with learning from the Swindon design and operation informing the plans.
Whitbread to replace gas with heat pumps and solar panels at Premier Inn hotels
Commenting on the news Richard Aldread, head of construction in the UK regions and Ireland for Whitbread, said:
“By welcoming guests to our first all-electric budget hotel in the UK, we are opening the doors on the future. 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.
“Premier Inn Swindon Town Centre is our first all-electric hotel without connection to a mains gas supply and is the culmination of years of hard work and commitment to designing and operating lower-carbon hotels – which has helped us reduce direct operational emissions by over 50 per cent since 2016. It represents a significant milestone as we endeavour to bring our operational emissions to zero by 2040.”
The opening comes ahead of the planned 2024 unveiling of voco Zeal Exeter Science Park, IHG’s “first lifecycle net zero carbon hotel”.
