The 23 kW hotel solar installation in Georgia that OneWorld Solar built at the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Savannah is a small system, and the useful part of the story is why a small system was the right answer rather than a compromise.
Hotels are good hosts for solar in the Southeast. The load runs continuously, the summer cooling peak lands squarely on the sunniest hours, and the operator holds the building for the long term. What a mid-size franchised hotel does not have is a large roof. Once you deduct the mechanical equipment, the setbacks, the fire access pathways and the areas the structure cannot support, the usable roof on a building like this is a fraction of its footprint.
The franchise question
A branded hotel is not simply a building its owner controls. It operates under a license that governs appearance and maintenance standards, which means anything touching the envelope or visible from the street may need the brand's review. The array itself is rarely the obstacle. The problem is timing: raising it with the franchisor after the drawings are stamped and the equipment is ordered turns a routine approval into a redesign.
Our advice on any franchised property is to open that conversation before the design is fixed, and to treat the brand's facility standards as a design input alongside the wind load and the roof warranty.
What we built
23 kW
Roof mount array
Sized by usable roof, not by ambition.
24/7 load
Continuous hotel operation
Daytime cooling peak matches production.
Savannah
Coastal Georgia site
Wind loading and salt exposure both apply.
The array was designed around what the roof could actually give. That sequence matters: the capacity is an output of the roof survey, the structural review and the roof warranty position, not a target chosen first and then squeezed on. Savannah's coastal location adds wind loading and some salt exposure to the attachment and hardware specification.
At this size, the incentives matter more than the scale
Be honest about small commercial systems. Design, permitting, interconnection and mobilization are largely fixed costs, so spreading them over 23 kW gives a higher cost per watt than spreading them over 500 kW. What usually makes a system this size work is the incentive stack rather than economies of scale, and no incentive should be assumed until the owner's own advisors confirm it.
The results
OneWorld Solar has not published production or bill-savings figures for this installation. The scope described above is what the company confirms; anything beyond it should come from OneWorld Solar directly.
The honest summary is that this project is a reference for a class of building rather than a savings claim: a mid-size franchised hotel, a roof with limited usable area, a brand approval to work through, and a system sized to fit all three.
If you own or operate a hotel
- The full picture for the sector is in solar for hotels and resorts.
- For a much larger example, see our 800 kW resort solar project in St. Maarten.
- Local utility, permitting and net metering context is in commercial solar installation in Georgia.
- Because scale is not doing the work at this size, read Section 179 solar depreciation and get the design and build handled under one commercial solar EPC contract.