مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد سیستم های اطلاعات انرژی مقیاس پذیر برای هتل ها – امرالد ۲۰۱۷

Although architects and engineers target energy efficiency in building design, operations of buildings differ from the design intent. Every minute, day, week, and month, in countries spanning the globe, from United States to India, large amounts of the energy consumed in buildings is not actually utilized for any purpose. For instance, one of the largest building energy loads, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems often fail to meet performance expectations due to various faults, poor maintenance and controls, and improper commissioning (Roth, 2005). It is normal for building equipment to experience operational stray (Henderson and Waltner, 2013), where actual energy use is higher than designed. A building’s actual energy use can be two to five times higher than designed (Roth et al., 2005). When the problem persists undetected over long periods of time, it can lead to an estimated 15 to 30 percent of energy wasted in commercial buildings (Katipamula and Brambley, 2005). The business-as-usual approach of tracking energy use through monthly utility bills is typically too late (being post-facto) and too coarse (being at a whole building level) to identify causes for wastage. Optimal performance requires access to higher granularity of energy consumption data, and more timely analysis. It requires that building energy use be continuously monitored and managed to curtail operational stray, capture deeper energy and dollar savings, and attain energy performance targets. On average, U.S. hotels spend approximately 6 percent of revenue on utilities, but historic and luxury properties may see energy costs hitting 10 percent or more (National Grid, 2004). A 10 percent reduction in energy consumption has the same financial effect as increasing the average daily room rate by $0.62 in limited-service hotels and by $1.35 in full-service hotels (ENERGY STAR, 2007). Trends from the hospitality industry show that utility costs are the second largest operational cost, after labor (Gaggioli, 2016). Some forward-thinking hotel owners use proprietary tools to capture monthly energy, waste, and water consumption data to identify trends, track performance, and compare the same against benchmarks, to inform decisions for efficiency actions for hotels in their portfolio. For instance, a large hotel chain reports that since implementing this tool in 2012, their hotels have saved $185 million in avoided costs. It also states that 75 percent of frequent travelers care about sustainability and one-third of business travelers actively seek environmentally friendly hotels—an indicator that this enterprise strategy could potentially attract clients to build up topline growth (Better Buildings, 2015). Such trends are also relevant in emerging economies, such as In India, where the hospitality sector has been growing at a cumulative annual growth rate of 14 percent (Indian Brand Equity Foundation, 2017); major international hotel chains are planning to set up or expand significant properties within the next decade. The high growth rate of this new hospitality footprint affords a substantial opportunity for energy efficient design and operations. The good news is that information technologies offer opportunities to reduce building energy demand and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Energy Management and Information System (EMIS) is a broad family of tools and services to manage commercial building energy use. These technologies include, for example, energy information system (EIS), equipment-specific fault detection and diagnostic systems, benchmarking and utility tracking tools, automated system optimization tools, and building automation systems. (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,