How hotels cut energy costs
Most hotels can take a real slice off their energy bill without touching guest comfort. The savings are in plant, schedules and controls, and the hard part is seeing them.
Where a hotel's energy goes
A hotel combines a restaurant, a bar, a laundry, often a pool and leisure centre, function rooms and bedrooms. Each has its own pattern of use and its own waste.
- Heating, ventilation and cooling: usually the largest share, and often fighting itself, with heating and cooling running in the same space
- Hot water: showers, kitchen, laundry and pool, heated around the clock
- Kitchen: ranges, fryers, ovens and extraction, often switched on hours before service
- Laundry: washers, dryers and ironers, a heavy load that can often be moved to cheaper times of day
- Pool and leisure: pumps, heating and dehumidification running continuously
- Refrigeration: cold rooms, bar and cellar cooling, minibars
- Lighting and guest rooms: rooms heated or cooled while empty
The savings that cost nothing
Before any capital spend, most hotels find savings in four places.
- Overnight load: what the building draws between midnight and 6am, when most of it should be off
- Schedules: plant timeclocks that no longer match how the hotel runs
- Setpoints: temperatures nudged up during a cold week and never put back
- Kitchen discipline: extraction and equipment switched off when service ends
Measure per occupied room, not per month
A monthly bill rises in a busy month and falls in a quiet one, which hides waste. Energy per occupied room night separates the two. If it rises while occupancy holds steady, something has changed in the building.
For groups, the same measure makes properties comparable. Two similar hotels should use similar energy per occupied room. The one that does not is where to look first.
The bigger projects, and the grants for them
Once the no-cost savings are in, the larger measures are usually heat pumps for hot water and heating, building controls, LED lighting, and solar PV on a large flat roof. SEAI grants support many of these, including the Non-Domestic Microgen scheme for solar and, for SMEs, an energy audit voucher worth €2,000.
Cost every project against a measured baseline. A heat pump sized from real hot water demand performs better and pays back faster than one sized from a guess.
Common questions
What is the biggest energy cost in a hotel?
Usually heating, ventilation and cooling, followed by hot water. Kitchens, laundries and pools add large loads where a hotel has them.
How do hotels track energy use per room?
By dividing measured energy use by occupied room nights for the same period. Sub-metering the main loads makes it possible to see which department drives any change.
Should a hotel install a heat pump?
Often, especially for hot water, but size it from measured demand. Monitoring before the project shows the real load profile and avoids an oversized system.
What grants can an Irish hotel get for energy?
SMEs can get a €2,000 SEAI voucher towards an energy audit. The SEAI Non-Domestic Microgen scheme supports solar PV for businesses, up to €162,600. Other SEAI schemes support larger efficiency projects. See our grants page for the current list.
Want this applied to your building?
Start with an energy audit. If you spend over ten thousand euro a year on energy, the SEAI grant covers most of the cost.