Hotel energy management

Hotel Energy Management is the practice of controlling procedures, operations and equipment that contribute to the energy use in a hotel operation. This can include electricity, gas, water or other natural resources. Because hotels can have complicated operations and extensive facilities they utilize many different types of energy resources. Hotel energy usages are tracked and classified by the [http://www.doe.gov U.S. Department of Energy] and statistics are regularly published in the [http://www.eia.doe.gov Energy Information Administration] annual reports.

Modern practices to control energy usage includes contributions by the guests themselves which has been popularized by information cards requesting guests to save water by letting hotel housekeeping staff know if they would care to re-use towels and bed linens. Some celebrities endorse this practice and some for-profit companies such as [http://www.projectplanetcorp.com Project Planet] distribute or sell these kind of materials and or procedures to hotel operators. This reduces the amount of water and/or cleaning substances used by the hotel laundry department which also reduces the expense to the property owner or manager.

Recently consultants have developed entire organizations around advising hotels where they are operating inefficiently or using more energy than necessary. Some of them participate by providing the products to implement their advice for a share of the cost savings. These companies have proliferated over the previous years as public and business energy concerns grow and are known as ESCO's (Energy Saving COmpanies). Other practices include using infrared motion sensors and door contacts to control the heating and air conditioning systems (HVAC) when guests leave them on and leave the room or leave open balcony doors or windows. While energy saving practices are commonplace in Europe and Asia, American guests often do not understand these ideas or mistake the products to be cameras or an invasion of privacy. Because of this the use of these products are not widespread however they can be seen more and more. There are still few suppliers but some of the products can be recognized as being made by such companies as [http://www.lodgingtechnologycorp.com Lodging Technology Corp.] , [http://www.honeywell.com Honeywell] , [http://www.inncom.com INNCOM international] , [http://www.johnsoncontrols.com Johnson Controls] , [http://www.energ.com Energy Eye, Inc.] and [http://www.roomenergy.com Room Energy] for hotel retrofits. Systems in Europe or Asia often include a slot near the front door which turns the room power on or off when inserting or removing the room access card or key, [http://www.roomenergy.com Room Energy] is a leading US supplier of the European key card room activation systems, easily installed in existing hotels.