Luxury Sandton Hotel Gets Five Star Solar System

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The penthouse suite at the Michelangelo Hotel, affords one a panoramic view across the rooftops of Sandton’s Central Business District, where upon closer inspection, you will discover that one rooftop in particular stands out noticeably from the rest.

Sporting 117 flat panel solar collectors capable of heating water for 138 guest rooms is the rooftop of The Hotel Da Vinci, Legacy Development’s latest jewel in its Sandton Crown.

Along with it’s strong commitment towards building with renewable energy, Legacy realized the value that installing a commercial system of this size would have in reducing the Hotel’s consumption of electricity and it’s overall operating costs.

The complexity of design and implementation of this Solar System required a collaborative effort between The Hotel’s partner on this project, Kayema Energy Solutions and their team of international solar experts together with Legacy’s architects and design engineers.

The result is a cutting edge Solar Water Heating System capable of pre-heating 30 000 litres of water before it enters into the Hotel’s electrical heating system, reducing the Hotel’s electricity usage by at least 60%.

An additional innovation of Kayema’s is the remote monitoring system which monitors flow rates, temperatures and water pressure and will allow an instantaneous view of this system’s efficiency and performance from any computer desktop 24/7.

The complete Solar system is scheduled for completion by end of February 2010 in line with Legacy’s required timings.

Details	Total
Estimated annual total KWh for heating up 30,000 liters of water per day to 65 degrees celcius	603,943KWh
Estimated annual savings as a result of solar panels	360,272KWh
Percentage of annual electricity usage saved	60%
Annual CO2 Saving	210.8 tonnes