Energy Conservation Programme

Once an energy audit is complete, the next logical step is to draw out and execute the exercise to accomplish energy consumption in sectors of the hotel where there is scope. This exercise constitutes the energy conservation programme. It must, however, be borne in mind that energy conservation is not a one man or one department programme. It requires involvement and commitment of every employee of the hotel from General Manager to the entry-level staff of any section.

Generally, an energy committee is constituted with the head of the committee being appointed from the department concerned. The committee is tasked to plan, implement, and monitor the energy conservation programme. The details of the philosophy of the programme are left to the committee. The committee must be made aware that the energy conservation programme is a three-phase programme. The flow chart mentioned in the next page (page 13) will clear the idea.

The first phase include the things that can be done immediately with minimum inconvenience to the guests as well as to the organization. The point to remember here is that there is no budget for an energy conservation programme, so the payoff of this phase is usually fairly large for the efforts put in.

The second phase involves readjustment of the operational practices. The savings made in these two phases should be fed back into the operations so that the third phase can be implemented.

The third phase involves changes in the physical property, which may require the owners’ investment plus the savings made in the first and second phases. For instance, installing equipment that would be instrumental in conservation.

Beneficiaries of Energy Conservation

The benefits of energy conservation are several. The manner in which various stakeholders stand to benefit from saving energy is discussed as under:-

Owners-  The foremost benefits of energy conservation are the monetary owners that accrue as a result of reduced cost of operations and consequent increase in the net profits of the property. The benefits of energy conservation generally go to the owners and senior management of the hotels. For instance, if a hotel earned Rs. 5,00,000 by reducing the energy cost per annum, then to save the same amount, they would have to increase the sales of their property by Rs. 25,00,000 per year to achieve same net profit, if the profit percentage is 20.

Guests- They may not be getting direct benefits in terms of money, but tremendous energy conservation is directly related to environment friendly practices and judicious use of natural resources. This intangible benefit in terms of enhanced well-being results in guest satisfaction that translates into repeat business to the hotel.

Staff- The employees stand to gain in terms of higher level of morale as also a sense of pride and achievement that comes from an increase in the level of effectiveness and efficiency. Maintenance of high level of service standards, better output, and productivity are other benefits derived from energy conservation.

Environment- The biggest gainer of the energy conservation exercise happens to be the environment. As ‘energy saved is energy generated’, this means that the rate of depletion of energy resources is slowed down, and they could be available for the consumption of future generations. An idea of the scale of saving natural resources can be drawn from the following statement:-

One ton of lost steam each day is equivalent to 80 litres of high fuel oil commonly termed as light diesel oil (LDO) or approximately 30,000 litres per year

Energy Audit

An energy audit is an essential step of energy management. Its objective is to analyze and evaluate collected data to determine the energy performance of an entire property and its major consumers. Simply, energy audit means comparison of the actual performance with the standard benchmark of a particular  equipment to find out the variance in terms of the actual and desirable performance.

Some useful tips while conducting the energy audit are as follows:-

• Carry out a departmental energy audit to get a fair idea of major energy consumers.
• Compare the result to determine potential savings from a section or department.
• Energy audit should be done on a regular basis.
• Convert energy units to Kwh.
• Establish a monitoring and targeting system.
• Install sub meters for each utility.
• Calculate on monthly basis energy consumption per kg for laundry.
• Compare the result with benchmarks and calculate the difference in percentage and money to see how much could be saved.

Benchmarks

These are yardsticks against which assessment or evaluation is done. The International Hotel Environment Initiative, launched by some leading corporate players in the industry, made the first significant move towards sustainable tourism by conserving environment and energy in the early 1990s. The move, backed by the Prince of Wales, evolved into the International Tourist Partnership, in 2004. This forum is credited with several ground-breaking firsts on environmental management in the tourism industry. It is also reported to have outlined guidelines for the hotel and catering industry to conserve energy and save the earth. Some tables provide information regarding benchmarks for some commonly used equipment in various sections of the hospitality sector.