Guests staying at the cliff-top hotel L’Avenc Benestar Rural in Tavertet, Catalonia, Spain, will be stunned by the views. It’s a former farmhouse which can trace its origins back a thousand years – and can even name its owner of 800 years ago.
The building is listed as being of National importance and as an apartment hotel offers peace, solitude and fine-dining to lovers of outdoor rural spaces.
After lying in ruins for fifty years the building has been completely restored preserving its important history. The accommodation has been designed in harmony with the building’s original architecture and surroundings. Panoramic glass picture windows enhance Catalan’s traditional building materials of timber and stone – with grand and flattering results.
Organic locally sourced seasonal ingredients are presented to table with an eye for detail and an accent on presentation.
The off grid family-run hotel increasingly uses renewable energy to reduce their reliance on the generator. Biomass is used to heat the sustainable water supply and PV and wind turbine are used to provide electricity – yet no compromise is made to the comfort of guests. Accommodation units include kitchen facilities such as a dishwasher and induction hob – whilst in the underground car park there are EV charging stations.
One of the challenges of running a hotel in a remote and tranquil location is power supply. Even when the electricity grid is available it’s prone to voltage drop and inconvenient power outages. L’Avenc are off-grid and have used a 70kVA generator – now their investment in sustainable energy aims to reduce its use as nearly to zero as they can achieve.
Discreetly installed around the location there are three fields of solar panels of differing sizes offering a total peak output of around 43kW. Each array is connected to a Fronius Symo three-phase PV Inverter providing a daytime AC power of up to 36kW.
The system was installed by Empordà Energia.
Excess energy is stored into Simpo 5000 batteries provided by ZYC Energy. There are 50 Lithium batteries each with a capacity of 5.12kWh; they are combined into a single bank offering 256kWh of stored energy available for 24 hour use.
Battery power is inverted by six Quattro 10000/48/140-100/100 Inverter/Chargers arranged for three-phase supply. These inverters are able to control the amount of energy the Fronius PV inverters provide to the battery bank, and can also charge the battery bank from the 70kVA generator.
Whole-system communication is provided by an Ekrano GX Communication centre device. Victron Energy topology is flawlessly compatible with ZYC lithium storage and Fronius inverters – the Ekrano GX harmonises the system’s energy harvest, storage and supply, as well as making live system data available locally via a multi-menu touch screen, and can provide engineering access to the system via the internet, from anywhere in the world using the free-to-use platform Victron Remote Management (VRM).
VRM remote access – for analysis, programming, and firmware updating – is invaluable to installers who can provide customers – even remote customers – with immediate assistance without leaving their office. Out of range status alarms prompt push notifications to make the engineer aware of a potential problem even before the user has noticed an issue.
The L’Avenc power system also includes a 10kW wind turbine and inverter.
The generator was once used to provide full-time energy but is now used to provide just 35% of the power requirement. Further planned investment in renewable energy will bring this figure closer to zero.
A second phase of installation will add another 30 kWp of PV capacity coupled with additional Fronius inverters.
