Checking into an energy efficient hotel?

thequietriot.com features today opportunities to make hotels more energy effient. Hotels waste large amounts of energy through heating, lighting, air conditioning, waste water etc. The energy efficiency can easily be increased by 20% within a year.

[UKPRwire, Wed Feb 04 2009] Finally – a week of skiing in a nice hotel in the Alps! A good breakfast in the morning, a day on the slopes, an hour by the pool and in the sauna afterwards, a delicious meal in the evening and a good nights’ sleep in a comfortably warm hotel room – what else would you need?

It needs a lot of energy - a resort hotel in the Bavarian Alps with a capacity of 220 beds and 100 rooms, a restaurant, swimming pool and spa area used around 1.5 million kWh of energy in 2007. The costs for the energy (mainly electricity and heating fuel) and the water used in the hotel were ca. Euro 150.000. Around 55% of this money is spent on heating the property, the pool and spa area. The remaining 45% were spent in almost equal parts on heating of hot water, air conditioning, the kitchen and lighting.

How can energy costs be cut by 20% within three years? What impact would this have on CO2 emissions and the environment? There are a number of ways to achieve this:
The oil heater can be up graded with a waste heat exchanger, which means the emitted heat is captured and used again in the heating cycle. This will need an investment of ca Euro 16k, the payback period will be less than three years and CO2 emissions will be reduced by more than 27tonnes p.a.

Most hot water in hotels from the showers, spa, kitchen etc just runs into the waste water system. A heat recovery system can save Euro 16k and reduce CO2 emissions by 86 tonnes per year. Changing all light bulbs into low energy bulbs requires and minimum investment and the payback is less than a month. The savings however are Euro 5.5k per year and ca 24t in CO2 emissions. Replacing the current electric cookers in the kitchen with induction hobs would save another Euro 5k per year.

Making these changes already enables a reduction of energy consumption and C02 emissions by more than 20% within the first year. And there are further areas for improvement such as water heating, air conditioning, cooling systems and lifts.

Once all the energy efficiency potentials are exhausted, the hotel can introduce systems such as solar power, ground and air heat pump, a chip wood burner or a combined heat and power unit (CPH). Energy generated locally is 90% efficient. Energy generated in a power station and delivered through the grid is only 40% efficient. 60% get lost in transition. Long term the hotel could generate all its energy locally and become independent outside sources.

Most importantly the management, the team and the guests have to keep an eye on energy consumption. We want to ski in a clean environment after all.

Next time you book a hotel, ask what their CO2 emissions per m2 are – 50kg/m2 or less would be a good benchmark. Energy efficient hotels are the new design hotels!