With the 500% increase in energy costs, many hoteliers will have to devote 18% of their business volume to paying bills. But there is a solution, it saves you 20 percent to 40 percent on your bill and is fundable through the Industry 4.0 plan and PNRR.
Tripled bills and a tourism supply chain in great difficulty. This is what emerges from the latest survey by Federalberghi, a dramatic picture for the hospitality sector that given the increases in energy and gas prices is forced to charge guests with the “2 energy tax.” But a solution exists, it’s called Energy and Room Management, and it saves 20 to 40 percent of the costs in the bill.
There are those who appeal to common sense and those who call for a conscious use of energy in the hotel room, hoteliers are doing everything to counter the high energy price but with this trend, there are few businesses that will resist further increases and at risk is especially the winter seasonality.
In Italy, many hotels have used the Industry 4.0 plan to install an Energy Saving System (EMS) and Room Management System (GRMS), which is functional in optimizing consumption and reducing waste.
“Making conscious use of energy within hotel rooms is necessary, even more so in this period,” says Massimiliano Cognigni, VDA sales manager. “As a solution provider we propose technologies that can help hoteliers save energy and avoid waste, we are talking about Energy Management (Energy Saving) and Guest Room Management (Room Management) solutions thanks to which hotels manage to optimize consumption and maximize internal operational processes.
Occupancy-based Energy Management systems are designed to intelligently manage rooms when they are unoccupied and notify the hotel manager of useful information such as: which room can reach the desired set point in the shortest possible time, taking into account the exposure of the facility and the outside temperature. With a smart thermostat, it is possible to adopt the thermostatic control strategy known as Recovery Time-whereby a thermostat programmed with the desired set point will start heating 15 minutes earlier for each degree of difference between room temperature and the morning set point.
GRMS technology also helps the hotelier save energy, just think of the ability to turn on/off certain room features when the guest is absent or turn off the air conditioning when a window is open. A GRMS system also helps improve the internal operational process by being able to optimize communication between the guest and the front desk. Think of Make-up Room or room service requests, which now pass directly through the front desk. With GRMS technology, you can make your requests directly from the internal panel or even in some cases from Tv, managing to optimize internal operational processes and save money/time/consumption.
Valid predictive maintenance is instrumental in saving costs. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, predictive maintenance saves 20% per year. We are talking about the maintenance performed based on the actual condition of the equipment rather than according to a predetermined schedule, so as to assess the condition and perform maintenance at the most propitious time before the equipment suffers a serious degradation in performance.
Optimizing consumption and limiting waste is the only possible recipe for managing rising energy prices.
“Worldwide about 89 percent of hotels do not have an EMS or GRMS system. In most cases, therefore, energy saving is left to the responsibility of guests or hotel operators who manually manage room functions and the cooling/heating system. In Italy with the Industry 4.0 plan and the PNRR more and more hotels are able to get up to a 50 percent deduction, thus enjoying the economic benefits of optimizing consumption. What is needed is a change of approach on the part of hoteliers themselves, and it will probably be the high energy prices that will act as an accelerator,” concludes Massimiliano Cognigni.
