Environmental Accommodation Providers of Auckland (EAPA)

Energy efficiency

Minimising energy use
Hotels use substantial amounts of energy in the form of heating or cooling or as power. The main use of energy includes:

• Heating, ventilation and air conditioning
• Laundry and dry-cleaning equipment
• Lighting
• Swimming and spa pools
• Cooking and refrigeration
• Fuel for vehicles
• Appliances in guest rooms and offices.

Conserving energy saves money
High energy consumption means high bills. Real savings can be gained:

• By simple housekeeping changes
• Low cost energy efficient measures.

Conserving energy benefits the environment
Energy consumed by hotels is supplied mainly by hydro electricity and supplemented by gas, geo thermal and coal generated energy. Burning fossil fuels is the principle contributor to global warming, acid rain and other air pollution problems. Adverse environmental effects of hydro power schemes result from the artificial damming of natural water courses.

Case studies

1. Auckland Airport Travelodge: Energy conservation lighting.
2. Hyatt Regency International Hotel: Reducing energy consumption in guest rooms.
3. Quality Hotel Logan Park: Water & energy efficiency in the kitchen.
4. Sheraton Auckland Hotel & Towers: Energy efficiency in the laundry.

Auckland Airport Travelodge
Initiative: replacing standard bulbs with fluorescent lighting

Introduction
Lighting is a major source of energy consumption in hotels. In addition to the hundreds of light bulbs used in public areas, most properties have well over a thousand bulbs located in guest rooms. The cumulative effect amounts to significant energy consumption.

One of the simplest ways to reduce energy consumption associated with lighting, is to replace incandescent bulbs with energy saving fluorescent bulbs. The savings gained the Auckland Airport Travelodge through this simple project are detailed below:

The hotel
The Auckland Airport Travelodge has 243 rooms and has been operating at a high level of occupancy. Energy bills have been high, therefore the hotel is keen to investigate ways that energy can be saved without compromising the quality of service offered to guests. Replacing incandescent lights with fluorescent bulbs in many parts of the hotel, has enabled the hotel to achieve this.

1. Lobby areas and walkways
Fluorescent bulbs have replaced all incandescent lights as part of a trial in the main lobby area and walkways.

Advantages include:

• Five times as much light for the same 20 watts of electricity used.
• The fluorescent bulbs last 10 times longer reducing maintenance costs and time used to change bulbs
• Less heat generated with fluorescent bulbs therefore less energy used to cool the hotel in summer months
• Lower heat also means less wear and tear on equipment fittings.

Savings
In the first year energy efficient bulbs saved the hotel per light $52.00
For the lobby area this equates to an annual of $12,000
This does not include labour savings for changing bulbs

2. Guest Rooms
As part of the progressive upgrade of all guest rooms energy efficient lighting has been installed. The original layout of each room includes 8 separate lights with a total load of 750 watts per room.

Advantages include:

• Significant cost savings though lower energy bills,
• Extended life of the lights
• Reduced labour and
• Reduced heat output, which requires cooling.

Savings

• Annual energy savings for a single fluorescent light (including the purchasing cost of the bulb) $10.35.
• Savings over the life of the fluorescent bulb (6 years as opposed to 6-7 months) $62.00.
• Annual energy savings for each room fitted with fluorescent lights (x 8 lights per room) $82,00.
• Energy savings over the life of lights for each room $496.80
• Annual energy savings for all rooms fitted with fluorescent lights (x 243 rooms) $20,120.
• Energy savings over the life of the fluorescent lights for the whole hotel $120,722.

It is clear that the energy savings alone produce dramatic cost savings. Not included in the savings shown are labour savings gained through reduced maintenance costs and savings in the extended life of fittings.

Benefits

• Reduced operational costs
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Reduced pollution through reduced energy consumption
• Improved worker safety
• Improved lighting levels.

Hyatt Regency International
Initiative: reducing energy consumption in guest rooms

The hotel
The Hyatt Regency International Hotel has 274 rooms. The energy demand of each room can be reasonably high, as hotel guests are able to control energy use and hot water consumption themselves. It is widely understood in the industry that many guests leave appliances heating and or lighting on even where they are out of the room. The cumulative energy consumption of guests doing this in 274 rooms is significant.

The new system
The system involves installing master switches in the entrance of each room, which require a room key tag to activate them. All non-essential energy demands (heating, air conditioning, lighting, radio and television) are linked to the master switch. This means that when guests leave the room and remove their key tag from the master switch, all non-essential energy demands are immediately switched off. Essential appliances such as refrigerators, alarm clocks, and power points for recharging mobile phones and shavers remain on.

Between 1992 and 1995 the hotel refitted all master switches so they are linked to room key tags.

Guest are informed about the initiatives and its objectives when they check in. Reception staff are able to supply an extra key tag for guests wanting to run air conditioning or heating, whilst absent from the room.

Pay back period

• Trade Cost per key tag $$58.76 + GST
• The one-off cost of purchasing and installing key tags in 274 rooms was $16,100 +GST
• Estimated reduction in energy demand is $14,001 per year*
• Estimated savings from extended life of light bulbs $1,825 per year**
• Total savings are $15,826 per year payback
• Payback time is about 14 months.

Assumptions
*This assumes that 70% of guests leave lighting, TV, and air conditioning on with an average occupancy of 80% over the year. This does not include the costs for the hot and chilled water used by the air conditioning units at the Hyatt Regency. If those costs were taken into account the savings would be greater.

** This figure is based on the average life of a light bulb (1000 hours) and assumes that 7 lights are left on for 5 hours over a 24 hour period while guests are not in their room.

Benefits

• Reduced energy use
• Extended life of light bulbs
• Increased awareness of staff and guests of simple ways to improve environmental management.

Sample formulas
The following imaginary example demonstrates the formula, which you can use to work out how much energy and money your own hotel, could save, by entering your hotels figures into the formula.

Energy consumption
Add up the number of watts used by those appliances connected to a master switch and therefore remain on when guests leave the room.
For example:

• 5 x lamps @ 60 watts = 300 watts
• 1 x Television @ 150 = 150 watts
• 1 x room air conditioner = 750 watts
• Total load = 1200 watts (1.2kW) per hour

Each hotel will differ according to the number of lights and the energy rating of each appliance.

Consider how many hours the average guest would leave the lights on whilst out of the room over a 24 hour period. You should consider whether your housekeeping staff turn off the master switch after they service a room and how many guests currently leave the master switch on, both during the day, and during the evening.

• Assumptions 200 rooms
• 70% occupancy
• 70% of guests leave lights and appliances on
• Energy costs - 10c/kW hour
• Potential hours usage saved per room = 5 hours

Potential energy savings
= 1.2kW x 5 hours x 200 rooms x 70% x 70% x 10c/kW x 365 days
= $21,462 per year for a 200 room hotel
= $107,31 per room per year is the maximum possible saving.

This formula will give you the cost each year of waste power. Remember each hotel is different. Guests will leave master switches on at different rates, and occupancy rates will differ between hotels and seasonally. For this example we have used an occupancy rate of 70% and assumed that 70% of all guests leave the lights and appliances on for 5 hours over a 24-hour period.

Quality Hotel Logan Park
Initiative: Energy efficient dishwasher

Introduction
The hotel's dishwasher had been in use for 30 years and incurred significant costs through high repair bills and reduced efficiency due to hand washing dishes when the dishwasher was out of action. Replacement of the dishwasher was identified as a priority for the hotel. Management requested that the new dishwasher be energy, water and chemical efficient to ensure consistency with the EHOA environmental policy.

The hotel
The Quality Hotel Logan Park is a medium sized property with 220 rooms and a number of function rooms. The hotel kitchen provides meals for all hotel function, the hotel restaurants and room service. Kitchen appliances are large consumers of energy and water, with dishwashers using particularly large quantities of both plus dish washing chemicals. Environmental impacts of dishwashing include emissions associated with the generation of energy and the discharge of pollutants to the trade waste sewer.

Initiative: Energy efficient dishwasher
The Electrolux Wash Tech 150 was selected for the following reasons:

• Reduced energy consumption.
• Only the first waste load of each day is heated though use of mains hot water. Subsequent loads are heated using a heat exchanger which stores hot water from the final rinse cycle and steam generated in every washing phase. Capturing and reusing the waste steam also saves energy by reducing the load on the kitchen extraction system.
• Reduced water consumption by 50%.
• This is achieved through use of the duo-rinse system. Rinse waste is reused in the power wash and pre-wash phases, unlike the old machine where all water was dumped. To maintain hygiene the rinse cycle uses clean, hot water.
• Reduced chemical consumption.
• Reuse of dishwashing chemicals from the wastewater of previous wash cycles means that fewer chemicals need to be added in subsequent washes.

Pay back period
The payback period for the Electrolux Wash Tech 150 is estimated as follows, based on the first 4 months use:

• Reduced repair costs = $1800 per year using the old machine
• Reduced energy costs = $5847 per year
• Reduced water costs = $576 per year (note that this does not include tradewastes savings).
• Reduced chemical costs = $6646 per year
• The payback for this type of dishwasher is less that two years. This doesn't take into account the $1800 spent on repairs by the hotel.

Benefits

• Reduced energy use.
• Reduced maintenance costs.
• Reduced use of chemicals reduces a) costs to the hotel and b) fewer chemicals are released into the trade waste sewers.
• Faster wash times.

Sheraton Auckland Hotel & Towers
Initiative: reducing energy use in the laundry

Introduction
Laundries have the potential to create significant adverse impacts on the environment. Vast quantities of energy, waste and chemicals are consumed to provide the daily washing and drying of sheets, towels, facecloths, bath and shower mats, shower curtains, tablecloths and napkins, uniforms and articles of guest clothing. Hotel laundries also discharge large quantities of liquid waste, waste heat and emissions, all of which can contribute to waste and atmospheric pollution.

In addition to environmental effects, hotel laundries can have a considerable impact on the hotel's financial bottom line with high operational costs. Energy is one of the major components of laundry running casts. Typically, washing accounts for 35% of the total process energy consumed in a laundry, with drying and finishing consuming the remaining 65%

The hotel
The Sheraton has 408 rooms. There is a very high demand on laundry facilities and energy bills have been considerable as a result

Reducing water temperature
Reducing the temperature of the water from 850C to 600C
This project was implemented when the chief engineer learnt that it had been successfully implemented in hotels in Australia and Canada.

Savings
Over the first three months the reduction in wash temperature had saved $2,000 in energy costs while achieving the same quality of wash.

Other measures

• Washes are only undertaken with full loads.
• A domestic sized washing machine and drier has also been installed in the laundry to accommodate off-peak washes required by guests.
• Washing machine use high speed spins to ensure maximum reduction in water, prior to sheets being dried
• Sheets are dried using a gas-fired roller press system.

Benefits

• Reduced energy costs
• Reduced atmospheric pollution associated with the reduced requirements for energy consumption
• Reduced consumption of wash chemicals per kilogram of clean laundry with a resultant reduction in the pollution load of the hotel wastewater, and a reduction in the trade waste costs.

Who deals with my waste?

Other links:

TIANZ

Green Globe 21