Hotels don't have to waste energy: Key-card management systems should be "business as usual"

No one ever takes a rental car to be washed. And most people don't think about energy savings when staying in a hotel. Too many blast the air conditioner or heat even when deserting the room for the day. But good luck to the hotel that tries to add it to my bill!

Thankfully, key-card energy management is a simple and effective way to conserve energy that has saved hotels money in Europe and Asia for years.

These systems link the heating, cooling and lighting in a room to an illuminated key-card slot near the entrance. When a guest leaves the room, taking the key card, the electricity is turned off, and the thermostat resets to a pre-selected non-occupied setting. When the guest returns and inserts the key in the slot, power returns to all equipment in the room-lighting, heating, cooling, TV and radio.

Rev Up RevPar: Energy savings can reach 45%

Maximizing RevPAR, or revenue per available room, is ultimately the primary goal of hotels and their managers. On that note, key-card system vendor RoomEnergy puts it simply: "If your rooms are wasting energy, you are wasting money."

DBS Lodging Technologies, based in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, is also a leading vendor of key-card energy management systems in the U.S. Its Entergize system has been installed in over 12,000 rooms across the country, from expensive brands like Westin and Wyndham to mom-and-pop hotels.

Depending upon a hotel's unique power profile, DBS Lodging's Entergize system can save 25 to 45% of the energy used by each room (not including energy to the hotel kitchen, laundry and public spaces, of course). With such savings, DBS Vice President David Donaldson says payback for the upfront costs of installing the system is just 16 to 22 months.

And the bigger, the better. Inevitably inefficient mega-hotels stand to save the most, the fastest, and avert the greatest environmental impact. For instance, the 616-room Pittsburgh Westin achieved a 10-month payback on its initial $120,000 investment in a key-card management system. Meanwhile, the hotel's annual energy use dropped nearly 10% (2 million kWh) in one year.

This fails to mention the other intangible benefits of a key-card system. For one, guests can no longer lock themselves out of their rooms, a common occurrence that taxes employee productivity.

Hotel managers that have switched to key-card systems report easy use. They operate without constant monitoring, as some energy management systems require, and do not mistakenly turn off the power, like a motion sensitive system.

Slow adoption in the U.S.

Though we have proudly included this idea into the 2009 Innovations Review, EDF admits that key-card energy management technology does not qualify as "innovative" on global basis, as it is already ubiquitous in Europe and Asia.

According to the makers of Entergize, adoption has been slow in the U.S. because hotels are unwilling to place what is perceived as an energy management "burden" on guests. However, those who have installed it, like Thomas Martini, GM of the aforementioned Westin in Pittsburgh, have found that, "the system works quite well, as long as we do the guest education up front."

And the past few years have shown that Americans do care about their environmental impact. We've been able to hang up our towel so it doesn't have to be washed everyday. Don't you think we're ready for the next step?

Wait.

Bringing our key with us when we leave? I thought we already did that.

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