Energy consumption traditionally accounts for a big part in a hotel’s operational expenses. To cut down on cost, operators turn to smart solutions such as IoT and big data that can help reduce energy usage significantly.
Energy consumption traditionally accounts for a big part in a hotel’s operational expenses. To cut down on cost, operators turn to smart solutions that can help reduce energy usage significantly. “While the purpose of using smart solutions is for energy saving, management cost saving, security as well as convenience, energy saving is still the first reason why investors choose a smart hotel solution,” said Jack He, International Sales and Marketing Director at HDL, a hotel automation solutions provider.
In this regard, operators can benefit from IoT and big data technologies which manage and control connected devices such as sensors, lights, smart thermostats, automatic blinds, and others, as well as examine data collected from these devices to see how energy can be saved further.
“Utilizing our expertise, we provide energy saving technologies as such smart digital meters to monitor energy usage as well as smart building automation system such as the ABB i-bus KNX system, where it can automatically adjust the air conditional fan speed and light emission to achieve optimum temperature and brightness to avoid wastage of electricity, as well as being able to control the electrical devices in the building via the mobile or tablet device,” said John Tan, Key Account Manager at ABB.
“Large volumes of building-related data are available in real time. This means that solutions and service offerings set new standards for comfort, productivity, security and energy efficiency. Buildings have to be not only energy efficient, but also digital intelligent,” said Tailung Hung, Head of Solution and Service Portfolio for Building Technologies at Siemens Taiwan.
Sensing the environment
A hotel is commonly divided into common areas and guest rooms, each can be helped with smart solutions to achieve further energy savings. In common areas, for example the lobby, sensors can detect the crowdedness of the area, current inside or outside temperature and the brightness of the facility to automatically adjust HVAC or illumination to the most desired level. In the room, movement sensors and access control systems can be used to detect occupants and switch on lights, HVAC and other devices accordingly. Once the occupant leaves the room, the control system may be switched back to energy savings mode to reduce consumption. “Our solution can be programmed with pre-configured check-in/check-out default settings to maximize room efficiency – drapes open or close, lighting levels are set, and the room temperature adjusts automatically,” said David Phillips, Director of Hospitality and MDU Sales at Control4.
The role of data
More importantly, the devices generate data that can be extracted or analyzed to help the operator further optimize energy savings. For example, data generated by smart plugs in the rooms can help the operator gain a better oversight of the energy usage as well as find potential problems.
“Data analytics shows facility utilization and footfall, thus ensuring better energy and utility monitoring and management,” said Kelvin Lee, Technology Lead at WIS Holdings.
“The explosion of devices with IoT will allow us to maximize the potential of connected buildings and the data that they have. Our cloud-based building energy and sustainability management platform is built with reporting and analytic capabilities and provides higher quality energy management services and is able to process massive amounts of data, effectively monitoring and analyzing information to offer building owners with more effective energy management strategies,” said Hung.