NATIONAL REPORT—When it comes to automation and connected devices in hotels, the guest experience gets a lot of focus—and rightly so. But advances in energy management and other technology solutions also gives hoteliers the ability to save money—both in terms of increased efficiencies, as well as reduction in energy consumption. And with hospitality just beginning to tap the potential of connected devices—not to mention an increased focus by many states in passing legislation designed to cut down energy consumption in public buildings like hotels—this is an area of the industry where we’ll see a lot of changes in the coming years.
Chad Burow, director of sales & marketing, Telkonet Inc., noted both the guest experience and the ability to save money are factors that drive hotels to look into sustainability solutions. “First and foremost, the hotel is looking for ways to reduce operating expense,” he said, noting that guestroom heating and cooling is typically the second largest expense for the hotelier. “The best way to reduce this expense is through intelligent automation.” He also said that guests looking to embrace sustainable practices often appreciate these sustainability initiatives.
Kristin Miller, CEO of Evolve Controls, noted that the majority of the company’s customers—largely in the four- and five-star segments—focus more on guest experience than reduction of costs. “What drives most of our customers is the guest experience, and we are able to provide savings related to energy and operational savings. That’s a perfect trifecta, to be capable of providing the three things we know are important to our customers,” she said.
However, Miller echoed Burow, noting that there is a changing demographic. “There are many studies stating that sustainability is important to millennials and it drives some of their decisions,” she said. But, she cautioned, hoteliers need to be careful about putting too much stock in that. “What you do see with the data is that while people talk a good green game, money doesn’t always follow the talk,” she said. “You need to be really careful about how you apply sustainability efforts and where you spend your money so you’re not just getting a ROI that disenfranchises your guest.”
For example, she said, many hotels in the luxury space have rooms that cost thousands of dollars per night. If a room is right on the beach, guests may choose to run the AC and open the doors to take advantage of the setting. “The hotel must be confident its guest’s preference can be accommodated. In those circumstances, we turn off occupancy settings and allow the guest or hotel to decide whether or not we’re going to go into setbacks or deeper setbacks,” Miller said. “And those who are concerned about the environment will consent to a setback, and those who aren’t as concerned—remember that they’re paying a lot of money for those rooms—they may do as they please. You want to empower your guest with the ability to make that decision. Additionally, you also must make it very easy for them to use.”
Jeff Johns, SVP Americas, Interel, said, “The true success of leveraging technology lies in providing guests with an environment where they enjoy their stay and hotel staff can respond instantaneously to service requests. To achieve this, it is necessary to have a fully connected guest room, where a balance of comfort, privacy and predictive technology allows a property and its staff to anticipate guests’ needs… The good news for the industry is that we are in a time where this is not just luxury level properties getting this type of technology, but soon a more universal availability of connected technology.”
According to Miller, many hotels have been smart about attacking the big energy costs—HVAC and lighting. However, she said, “The guestrooms comprise somewhere between 40-60% of the space, yet 50% of the hotels don’t control their in-room or hotel room space.”
In the past, there have been many challenges to creating a truly energy-efficient hotel. Burow noted that the biggest challenges “have been bridging the gap between new technology and a reluctance to adopt these new technologies.” He added that hoteliers often thing energy management platforms will be too expensive. “When we provide the customer with an ROI calculation and help them navigate the rebates available to them, they are pleasantly surprised at how quickly the system pays for itself.”
Johns noted, “In North America, it is estimated that 48% of guestrooms have some form of energy management solution in place. When these systems are functioning properly, they provide measured savings. However, the challenge is determining whether these systems are continuing to operate properly several years after installation, and monitoring whether your energy management solution is really working at all. A key consideration for properties with energy management systems is the investment in either recommissioning these systems, or upgrading the systems to do more than just HVAC energy management and begin to focus on IoT and a more advanced solution for the future.”
Currently, the average hotel saves between 25-45%, according to Burow. “This all depends on what their current KWH spend is for energy in their area,” he added.
For her part, Miller noted, “In-room controls require a capital investment and the payback is somewhere between one and three years. You know the old adage, location, location, location? Well, it is true. You must look analytically at what part of the country you’re in because the cost of a KWH, which is your denominator, drives your ROI. For example, if you’re in Seattle or Iowa where the KWH is very low (under 5 cents), you’re going to have a tough time making that financial decision on a return being less than three years. If you’re in New York or the East or West Coasts where you’re in the double digits, or you are in Hawaii where it’s over 20 cents, it makes a lot of sense to go through and make some of those adjustments and investments. Your energy rate significantly impacts your payback period.”
She also noted the investment may also be based on what type of system the hotel is putting into place: “Is it just an energy management system? Are you also controlling the lighting? Are you putting scene controllers in? The ROI is dependent on the number of devices you are controlling.”
Johns agreed. “Guestroom energy management systems have the potential to produce different levels of savings, depending on the design of the system and what information it uses to create a logic sequence,” he said. “PMS integrated EMS is a fully networked system that includes the check-in/checkout status from the PMS, which can typically save between 28-35% against runtime of the system. This means that the system cooling calls or fan runtime will be reduced as opposed to a room without energy management.”
However, he added, “The Sensor Only system, which only uses a motion sensor without a door sensor, may only save 10-15% because it runs the risk of missing the presence of a guest, and causing the HVAC to turn off and affect guest comfort. A system using more accurate information on rental status, combined with a door sensor, is more likely to save energy because it is more accurate.”
“On average, a hotel equipped with a Verdant thermostat is seeing a reduction in heating and air conditioning run times of about 40%. If you have a hotel room that’s used to running AC six hours a day, we’re typically able to bring that down to three or four hours a day,” Verdant Environmental Technologies’ Michael Serour said. “That has a very big impact not only on the hotel’s energy bill at the end of the year, but on the efficiency and length of life of the HVAC equipment, which also has significant quantifiable value. It’s a very big benefit for a hotel to be able to set back the heating and air conditioning when the room is unoccupied that’s going to translate into real dollars and cents.”
Of course, with IoT becoming a more integral part of the hospitality space, sustainable energy solutions won’t just be about HVAC systems and lighting in the future. “The key for hoteliers is to broaden their focus from purely energy management and to look at incorporating systems that enable other key strategies, such as door-lock networking and data analytics,” Johns said. “With this new focus, the goal of the ‘connected guestroom’ and IoT can leverage the energy savings of guestroom systems and build upon this to bring new values to guest room systems. In the current market, guest room technology and networking of devices for IoT and energy management is about enabling future solutions, and using ROI from energy savings to off-set the capital investment. If designed and executed well, the property can achieve the dual goals of recommissioning the energy management system and enabling new features that can save more energy and support new guest services.”
Burow noted the company has integrated with other systems—shades, lighting and minibars, to name a few—“to provide our hotel customer a complete solution throughout the entire guestroom to provide a truly sustainable room that saves energy, but also provide great features to help them create an awesome guest experience.” Recently, he said, there’s been a lot of interest in controlling the guestroom refrigerators. “These are the second largest energy consumer in the guestroom,” he said. “We have been deploying more intelligent switches for bathroom fans as well.
“Eventually we will start seeing demand response become more prevalent in the hotel,” he said. “This is true particularity in areas where grid quality is suspect. This enables the property to shed the energy load in an unsold room. In addition to that, the more we see devices connected to devices, it becomes more important for the hotel to choose a platform that is compatible and open to devices like shades, door locks, lighting systems, BacNET compatible. The software component should be closely examined. Can the platform address humidity and report data and automate action to address high humidity? Does the platform have a mobile app to include in the brand app and give guests control over their own sustainability choices?”
For his part, Johns said, “IoT is the new buzzword and by using it to label existing technology in place, the industry may be limiting its ability to embrace fresh, new changes to improve connectivity and operational success.” He noted that connected thermostats have been around for a long time, “yet with a focus on IoT and concept of devices becoming network aware, these connected thermostats are now called IoT devices. Ultimately, it may be that the hospitality industry has been ahead of the curve on implementing connected technology to make guest rooms more energy efficient.”
That being said, he noted, “IoT will impact guestroom technology and energy management because the operational efficiency of the guestroom provides such a significant payback for operators. The timeline for wide adoption of IoT devices will be based on the integration of more devices using a common and converged network to make it possible to connect more devices without excessive costs of networking each system separately. This next phase has already started with the significant investment in BLE door locks and enabling guest mobility. With this remains the challenge, however, that the true nature of IoT is not just in the integration of devices, operations data and guest interaction, but also in enabling new applications and analytics. The ability for IoT technology to change the hospitality landscape happens when the efficiency of the system enables adjustments and predictive actions to deliver measurable and sustainable results.”
According to Burow, the “possibilities are almost endless” when it comes to IoT devices aiding hotels in their sustainability goals. “We field requests on a daily basis to look at custom solutions to address anything from window drafts to water heater management,” he said. “We are always developing based on customer demand.”
Interel introduced a water management system, which Johns said “potentially represents the tangible value of IoT for devices in the guestroom. Water is a key resource for a hotel, and in many regions of the country, it’s a topic that presents significant challenges for a hotel. Recent developments in water management have focused on laundry and other central operations, yet the guestroom remains essentially the same as a residential bathroom for a hotel. Flow restrictions and mechanical functions can provide solutions, yet the future of water management is in the combining of water conservation with network-aware IoT solutions to measure and quantify the benefits.”
Regarding the potential of IoT, he said, “First is the opportunity for guestroom water management online to conserve an important resource and create new best practices through data analytics. Then, as more IoT devices are deployed in the guestroom and across the property, there is the opportunity to use data analytics and aggregated information for system maintenance, staff scheduling and to optimize performance of the property. The real-time delivery of actionable information will allow operators and owners to establish, measure and monitor best practices for maintenance, operations and sustainability. The ultimate goal is to know the status of devices in rooms to ensure the guest has a consistent and high-quality experience. Connected guestrooms will begin to move from just sensors and devices to a more interconnected experience with guests and staff carrying connected devices to focus on predictive technology that can continually improve the performance of systems to further enhance sustainability.”
Predictive analytics will be increasingly important to sustainable practices. Miller added that engineering and operations teams are “really looking to determine if the equipment is working the way it should: Do I have any failures? Do I notice there’s something where the room can’t hold temperature? Do I need to complete some preventative maintenance? Eventually, we’ll get to self-detection and diagnostics and that’s where our company is headed. Our goal is to enable a little bit of predictive maintenance and determine when something is not quite right with the HVAC before there is a major issue. The hotel is able to then make a correction before the guest notices a problem. This helps the operations team plan for repairs. No problems and no inconveniences make for a satisfied guest.”
“The software is key,” said Burow. “There are many software solutions that report and display data, but that is where it stops. Having the ability to create custom alerts and custom profiles to address seasonality or peak demand events is critical.”
Miller agreed that the data is crucial. In the next few years “I think hotels will begin using the big data they’re collecting. There’s an incredible amount of information available and we want to help our customers use it effectively—what to look at, how to dissect it, and what’s important,” she said. “We provide really simple reports, but we also have a whole service department just to help customers dissect the data. Our service team has called customers to inform them that they have a problem and to work with them through some of the issues at the hotel before a guest might have noticed.” She noted that this is a relatively new offering. “There’s so much information coming in, you need to be able to figure out what’s valuable, what’s not, what’s meaningful, what’s going to help your bottom line, whether it’s in sustainability or operational savings,” she said. “With everything being connected, you really need to be able to figure out how you’re going to effectively filter that data.”
Energy management tools—like Telkonet’s here—must be easy to use.
Serour noted that Verdant has given its customers the option of taking the data decisions out of their hands entirely with Versant Energy Intelligence. “To date, our customer base has been managing, monitoring and controlling their thermostats themselves. What we’ve heard from our customer base has been an overwhelming desire to give the keys to the car back to the experts. While our customers are absolutely terrific at running their hotels, they’re not necessarily experts in energy management, and oftentimes the difference between an energy management system saving a decent amount of energy and working at optimal levels is the difference between a hotelier managing settings and the experts managing settings,” he said. “Verdant Energy Intelligence is essentially 24/7 automation of a hotel’s energy management and thermostat settings for the life of a thermostat system. Rather than training the hotel staff on how to set back the thermostats, what are the recovery rates, what setback limits to implement into their system, Verdant is now taking over complete automation of a hotel’s energy management system.”
Future energy management tools will come with other challenges as well. “A current challenge for hoteliers is that energy management is focused on HVAC systems in a guestroom; therefore, the view is that this is the responsibility of the engineering and facilities team. As guestroom systems become more IT centric, there is a big question mark on whether engineering teams, focused on break-fix and maintenance, are able to keep up with the complexity of the technologically advanced room systems,” Johns said. “As more integration occurs and systems become more sophisticated with IoT devices, it will be important that dashboards, displaying relevant information, are readily available and, through push notifications, can be directed to key employees. The information sent to a chief engineer may be different to that sent to the director of engineering, the guest services manager, general manager, asset manager, or regional cluster lead for the brand. The connected room can take the volume of data analytics and provide information that is relevant and actionable by different people.”
As hotels look to incorporate sustainable tech, there are some questions to make sure to ask. Burow said, “First, look at how scalable the technology is. Can it grow with your needs in the future? Do not under invest with a limited platform. Examine the wireless technology and the providers’ capability with wireless networking. Do not limit yourself to a very proprietary technology that does not play well with other manufacturers like door locks, shades and lighting. Can the manufacturer bring a complete solution to the table? Do they have local channel partners in your area who can support you? What type of customer support system is in place? Is it outsourced? Will you be supported by a dedicated team of experts or will you be routed to a giant call center handling support questions for hundreds of different products?
To know what type of system to add to a hotel, Miller said hotels should look at what guests are expecting and who their prototypical guests are. “It’s knowing who your guests are and what their preferences are first,” she said. “You can do everything from just the HVAC system to also controlling the lights and the drapes. Many customers have selected to have a welcome scene in place, allowing the designer to showcase the room as they envision the guest should see it when they first enter the room. You can do a welcome scene that says, ‘This is what the designers had in mind for you when they built the room.’”
She added that hotels should consider other costs associated with room controls. “Do you have to rewire the entire room which may entail opening up walls or cutting into a special finish (like marble)? Where is the cost (labor and material) for rewiring a room? Is additional infrastructure required, like servers or routers that the hotel has to maintain? How quickly can the room be placed back into service if the room walls have to be opened? Additionally a hotel should look at the guest interface—is it simple? Does the guest know how to use it? Importantly, I would want to know if the customer calls the company, does someone answer?”
Looking to the future, Johns said, “The exciting part of the new transformation of guestroom devices and technology is that we are seeing the opportunity to deploy devices that are not just fixed in their function at the time they were purchased, but can continually improve over time. Up until this point, when you purchase technology, it is often based on a fixed set of features and inter-connectivity. The challenge is that a project completed in 2015 may not work with emerging technologies coming out in 2017 and planned for a hotel renovating its rooms in 2018. This model considers infrastructure and technology advancements that fit into renovation cycles. With more advanced devices and real-time network connectivity, modern room devices are designed with a focus on operating systems and application layers. With these new devices, combined with data analytics, a device can provide information on operational efficiency and allow the system to learn and improve performance. These devices can then be upgraded with new software to leverage new energy savings logic, add new features or connect new devices added to an existing system years after the original installation… Ultimately, advancements in technology will identify new ways to save additional energy without affecting guest comfort, and the aggregate of these hours, minutes and even seconds of savings will make the modern hotel even more efficient.” HB
