The Montenotte Hotel Cork

The Montenotte is an independent luxury urban resort in Cork City, comprising hotel rooms, suites, self-catering residences, the Woodland Suite Experience, restaurants, bars, spa facilities, meeting and event spaces, landscaped gardens and leisure facilities. As a year-round hospitality business, the resort operates with significant energy demands to deliver the exceptional guest experience expected of a luxury destination.

Recognising that energy efficiency and renewable generation are essential to both environmental responsibility and long-term operational resilience, The Montenotte has placed sustainability at the heart of its business strategy through its Green Leaf Programme. This structured environmental management programme measures key performance indicators including electricity consumption, gas usage, water consumption, waste generation and carbon emissions, while establishing annual objectives across every department.

A defining milestone in this journey was the completion of a €150,000 investment in a resort-wide solar photovoltaic installation. The installation of 330 rooftop solar panels across the hotel and residences and the health club represents the largest single investment in renewable energy undertaken by the resort to date and demonstrates a long-term commitment to generating clean electricity onsite while reducing dependence on grid energy.

As part of their commitment to reducing their electricity consumption the Montenotte decided that going solar was the most practical way to do this.

The Montenotte’s energy strategy was developed with one clear objective: to reduce the resort’s environmental impact while creating a more energy-efficient and resilient business.

Rather than viewing sustainability as a series of isolated initiatives, the hotel adopted a whole-business approach through its Green Leaf Programme, integrating energy management into daily operations, capital investment and future development. The strategy combines demand reduction through operational efficiencies with increased onsite renewable energy generation, ensuring long-term environmental and commercial benefits.

The centrepiece of this strategy is the resort’s investment in solar energy. Between January and February 2026, ownership invested €150,000 in the installation of 148 solar photovoltaic panels across the hotel and residences. By March 2026, 75% of the installation was already operational, generating renewable electricity for the resort and significantly reducing reliance on externally supplied electricity.

From the PVGEN perspective, all large solar systems are complex, installing two state-of-the-art solar systems consisting of 330 solar panels at a working hotel without disrupting hotel operations or the tranquillity of the guests was even more complex. The PVGEN team had to ensure that everything was planned with extreme precision.

• The main panel installation, which consisted of 330 solar panels, took place over 7 weeks.
• Edge protection and scaffolding was erected in stages as to minimise disruption to ongoing the hotel day to day business.
• As certain stages of the panel install were completed, scaffolding was taken down and re-erected in front of scaffolders keeping scaffold onsite to a minimum to avoid disruption.
• The electrical shutdowns, which were required for the invasive electrical survey and final grid connection terminations, were carefully planned in conjunction with hotel management to avoid disruption.

The design team at PVGEN expertly mapped out the installation to ensure maximum coverage taking sun direction and other factors into consideration.

The Montenotte’s investment in renewable energy has transformed the resort’s approach to energy management and established a strong foundation for continued carbon reduction.

The flagship achievement has been the installation of 330 rooftop solar photovoltaic panels, delivered through a €150,000 investment across the hotel and residences, and the Montenotte Motion Health Club. By March 2026, 75% of the installation was operational, generating clean renewable electricity onsite and reducing reliance on grid-supplied energy.

The solar installation is supported by complementary energy efficiency initiatives including resort-wide LED lighting, renewable heat pump technology throughout the Woodland Suite Experience and continuous monitoring of energy performance through the Green Leaf Programme.

Collectively, these initiatives support the resort’s ambitious annual targets.

Beyond energy performance, the programme has eliminated single-use plastic toiletries, replaced bottled water with sustainable carton alternatives, expanded electric vehicle charging infrastructure and delivered significant biodiversity enhancement through woodland regeneration, native planting and the Nights for Nature initiative.

The Montenotte continues to measure progress through detailed environmental KPIs, enabling data-led decision making and ensuring every investment contributes towards a more energy-efficient, lower-carbon future.

Looking ahead, the solar photovoltaic installation represents not only a significant environmental achievement but a long-term investment in energy resilience, operational efficiency and sustainable hospitality. It demonstrates how a luxury urban resort can successfully integrate renewable energy into its operations while maintaining exceptional guest standards, making The Montenotte a strong example of best practice within Ireland’s tourism and hospitality sector.

From PVGEN’s perspective, as a result of this project, we estimate that the Montenotte will save 34% of their energy usage every year going forward. Their payback on this project is estimated to be 2.8 years (this is the length of time it takes for the cumulative energy savings and export income to equal the net upfront cost of the system).

This solar project was a massive step-forward in helping the Montenotte to reduce its carbon footprint and achieve its sustainability goals as part of its five-year sustainability plan.

Results have been impressive, for both state-of-the-art solar systems. Results for the Montenotte Motion Health Club for May 2026 were:

• Total energy generated: 8,210 units.
• Total energy consumption: 18,530 units.
• Energy consumed from the grid: 11,550 units.
• Energy consumed from solar: 6,970 units.
• Self-consumption: 85%.

This resulted in a 40% reduction of energy use at the Montenotte Motion Health Club in May 2026. For the Hotel itself, this resulted in a 11% reduction of energy use at the Montenotte Hotel in May 2026.

• Total energy generated: 8,640 units
• Total energy consumption: 78,100 units
• Energy consumed from the grid: 69,460 units
• Energy consumed from solar: 8,640 units
• Self-consumption: 100%