Radisson Hotel Group (RHG) has been a pioneer in taking action to reverse climate change and has always showcased a commitment to the environment. The Group is building on its long heritage of sustainability through its commitment to setting science-based emission reduction targets and aims to achieve a net zero carbon future by 2050. Keeping up with this commitment, this World EV Day, Radisson Hotel Group celebrates the inauguration of its Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers in partnership with SunFuel at the Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi International Airport. This is an extension of the Group’s collaboration with SunFuel to EV-enable its portfolio of 100+ hotels across South Asia.
The hospitality sector at large has been keen to encourage the use of EVs among travelers especially given the rise of road travel to explore nearby destinations. Given RHG’s widely spread domestic network and presence in 60+ locations across India, it is a significant enabler for road travel with one hotel every four hours. Thus, the Group has pledged to provide optimal charging infrastructure typology across all hotels in India with the intent to reduce range anxiety amongst consumers.
This infrastructure will include SunFuel-designed 22 KWh Level 2 AC Chargers with technology from Siemens. These are the fastest AC Chargers possible today which makes this infrastructure future-proof. The initiative aims to reduce range anxiety among tourists, particularly avid travelers exploring the length and breadth of the country in their electric vehicles. The group is proactively creating a visible EV-charging infrastructure that will catalyze behavior modification among non-EV users to choose an electric car for their next purchase.
Talking about the initiative, Zubin Saxena – Managing Director & Vice President of Operations, South Asia at Radisson Hotel Group said, “At Radisson Hotel Group, our guests are at the heart of everything we do. We are delighted to commence this journey in partnership with SunFuel to provide EV charging facilities for our guests and do our bit towards the environment. We believe that destination charging will be a big driver of the country’s adoption of electric automobiles amongst consumers, and the launch of our charging facilities will further our vision for a sustainable tomorrow and underscores our commitment to shaping the future of responsible travel. This will help in easing the journey of our guests as they can ‘fuel up’ seamlessly across our hotels in India. There is a Radisson hotel every four hours, and we are positive that this will solve range anxiety amongst EV owners.”
The inauguration was attended by Inge Huijbrechts – Global Senior Vice President of Sustainability, Security, and Corporate Communications for Radisson Hotel Group who said “As one of the leading hospitality companies we have the vision to facilitate responsible tourism and travel. We do this with our own sustainability strategy and commitment to Net Zero, and by offering sustainable value propositions to our guests such as this brand-new network of EV chargers. We are proud to be playing a leadership role to establish a framework to grow sustainable travel, give back to nature and build a climate-conscious community of travelers.”
Speaking on the occasion, Nitin Kapur, Managing Director, Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi Airport said, “We are thrilled to be the first hotel to install the electric vehicle charger at Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi Airport and to unveil the same on this memorable day of World EV Day. Along with numerous other continuing efforts to minimize carbon emissions at our level, the RHG-SunFuel association is one little step we have taken in the direction of sustainability that will help make the world a cleaner, greener, and healthier place”.
Calling its chargers ‘state-of-the-art’, Sudhir Nayak, Co-founder of SunFuel Electric mentioned that the design of the chargers had been developed with the help of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (Department of Design), and the technology inside the chargers is powered by Siemens. He also mentioned that every Radisson hotel in India will be equipped with one charger each, to begin with. However, as EV adoption increases, four EV chargers will eventually be installed in each hotel to ensure adequate availability. Elaborating on the SunFuel and Siemens partnership, he said, “Siemens is the technology partner for the EV chargers being deployed by Sunfuel Electric at Radisson Hotels. SunFuel – Siemens partnership would support Radisson guests in a smooth transition towards EV adoption by providing reliable and scalable charging infrastructure.”
SunFuel nurtures a community of EV enthusiasts who travel together on E-Trails and Radisson Hotel Group will continue the partnership with SunFuel’s EV Trails in the future, giving EV travelers identical customized road trip itineraries when staying at Radisson hotels across India. The group envisions this partnership with SunFuel to flourish further basis the Radisson India Electric Road Trip commitment to EV-enable every RHG property across its widespread domestic network.
