World’s Largest Luxury Hotel Chain Reduces Energy Costs By $11 Million

The Background

The team at Chateau Energy Solutions has enabled a range of energy savings solutions for a luxury hotel chain (headquartered in Chevy Chase, MD), helping to revitalize the chain’s commitment to responsible energy management and sustainability.

The Challenge

Our team was asked to design and implement a three-year energy management program to reduce energy consumption through engineering services. Our experts first partnered with the hotel’s executive management team to establish clear goals:

• An energy assessment to obtain a snapshot of the company’s energy performance with which to benchmark future progress.
• An energy reduction of 3% per program year, or 9% of the total usage over the program’s three-year term.
• A unique roadmap created for each property including exact specifications on how to achieve year-over-year reduction goals.
• Careful alignment of the energy team and the client, keeping a close eye on budgeting, standards compliance, and daily operations.

The Approach

The energy assessments provided insight into financial and energy savings opportunities for every one of the 32 hotels surveyed. Each property was assigned a dedicated engineer who visited the site regularly and performed assessments and retro-commissioning services, as well as the examination of historical utility bills, over the three-year program. Each energy conservation measure (ECM) was then simulated in computer software to determine the measure’s impact on current operations. Those ECMs were prioritized along with estimated project costs in a detailed, item-by-item analysis. Each property then received a final report containing all of the information distilled and presented in a concise and action-oriented format.

The Results

The energy efficiency program proved to be an enormous success in terms of cost, efficiency, long-term gains, and public relations. The assessments found quantifiable savings for every hotel, and over the three-year period retrofits were successfully implemented and monitored for optimum performance. The more than 400 different projects completed for this program produced the following benefits:

• Total energy reduction exceeded expectations—a 13.2% reduction which translated into $11 million in overall cost savings.
• In light of the successful results of the program, the luxury hotel brand was able to dispel the internal misperceptions that energy efficiency requires dramatic austerity measures.
• The programs offered the brand a differentiated business model for their hotel ownership groups by providing strong ROI opportunities in a competitive capital market.
• The brand successfully positioned itself to compete and obtain capital dollars from its owners by providing a strong strategic approach to its energy opportunities.
• The paradigm shifted from regarding the use of energy costs as a required expense to looking at energy as a strategic asset.

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