You woud love to get a better hotel energy efficiency but you don’t know where to start? I’m not an expert on the subject, but let me share with you a few tips that I collected in hotels during my HopTour of Latin America.
From Passiv to Positiv
I see too many hotels who start to invest in costly energy production solutions (i.e. solar panel) without having first really seriously worked on the energy consumptions reduction. And this is a very important point. Before to consider producing energy, you should first do your maximum to reduce energy waste.
If you are in the building process, please, have a look at the basics of “passiv house“. You’ll find a lot of articles about it on Internet. Also an architect friend of mine recommended to read this book: “Sun, Wind, and Light: Architectural Design Strategies” Mark DeKay & G. Z. Brown. You can save a lot of enerygy applying these basic techniques from the beginning. And if you manage to build a hotel which is so low in energy consumption that it is almost neutral, you could even start to produce your own energy to make it a “positive house“!
NGO Programs in your country?
I stayed at the Eco-Hotel Arbol de Fuego in Salvador. They received in 2010 the expertise from the collaboration of two NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) to conduct an energy diagnosis of the Hotel. They implemented 18 of their 20 recommandations within the following 9 months, and got amazing results!
You might get inspired by these reports and some of the recommandations for your own hotel. However, the best is really to get a personalized on-site diagnosis as each hotel has its own specificities.
BUN-CA is a NGO which works through all Central America. Maybe are there such organizations in your country also? Please free to share with me the good tips that I’ll add to this articles then.