With the energy crisis ongoing, hotel owners are naturally looking for ways to measure the amount of energy their businesses consume and ways of reducing this.
At Business Energy Comparison, we’ve put together this guide to highlight the areas in your hotel that are most likely using the most energy. We’ve also included some useful tips for reducing your energy usage and keeping your bills as low as possible.
The energy demands of a hotel are largely dependent on the number of guest rooms it has. This is because the rooms must be kept comfortable for the occupants. To do so, energy-intensive appliances like air conditioning units and radiators are heavily used.
In order to work out the average energy usage of a hotel, you first need to know how much energy the bedrooms consume.
Let’s take a look at an example.
A small hotel has 25 rooms or fewer and the rooms measure around 60 m². Each square meter of these rooms uses about 100 kWh of electricity and 300 kWh of gas annually. So, to work out the annual energy consumption these figures must be multiplied by 60 m².
That means that the average bedroom in a small hotel uses 6,000 kWh of electricity and 18,000 kWh of gas each year. Clearly, a small hotel is going to pay more for its business gas per year than it does for its business electricity.
However, these figures only account for the average energy usage of a hotel’s bedrooms. Your business energy bills will also be greatly impacted by any other on-site facilities such as restaurants and swimming pools.
Of course, the size of your hotel will also affect your energy costs. Large hotels with 100 bedrooms often use around 80,000 kWh of electricity and 266,000 kWh of gas each month.
The best way for large hotel owners to save money on their energy bills is to compare hotel energy rates and find the best deal.
Lifts are incredibly useful things to have in hotels and most multi-level hotels have at least one. They help guests to reach higher floors and save them from carrying heavy luggage up flights of stairs.
It might seem like lifts would use a lot of electricity but this isn’t actually the case. The lift or lifts in your hotel shouldn’t be increasing your business electricity bills too much.
A lift’s average usage of electricity to move one floor is about 2.5 Wh. So, even if a lift needs to move between 20 floors it would only use 50 Wh of electricity. This would not have much of an impact on the operating costs of an average business in the hotel industry.
One thing that’s sure to increase the amount you pay for your business utilities is having an on-site gym at your hotel. This greatly affects how much electricity your hotel uses.
Estimating exactly how much electricity your gym uses is difficult as it depends on a number of factors. These include the opening hours, the size, and the types of machines it has.
On certain days, the gym will consume more electricity than it does on others. For example, it may be full of guests one day and then barely be used the next.
Generally, a hotel gym will have air conditioning, electric bikes, running machines, and televisions which all contribute to electricity usage.
The best way to estimate the amount of electricity that your hotel gym uses is to break down the usage of the machines and devices.
Air conditioning is used to keep gyms cool so that they’re a comfortable environment to work out in. This means that A/C units are one of the biggest consumers of electricity within most gyms.
A 3kW A/C unit uses around 30 kWh of electricity when left on for 10 hours. Of course, more powerful units use more electricity.
Treadmills and machines like rowing machines use around 1.5 kWh of electricity an hour. If one of these machines is being used for 8 hours a day then it will be consuming about 12 kWh of electricity per day.
Unless your hotel gym has a lot of natural light, it’ll need to be lit whenever it’s in use. Most gyms use LED panels rather than lightbulbs which have a high level of energy efficiency. However, LED panels still contribute to electricity usage.
An LED panel typically uses around 0.25 kWh over a 10-hour period. So, if a gym has 10 panels then it will use around 2.5 kWh each day. If your gym uses fluorescent panels rather than LED ones then they will use a lot more electricity.
Small hotels are less likely to have gyms than large hotels which means this isn’t usually a concern. If your small hotel does have a gym, then you should compare small business energy suppliers to make sure you have the best rates possible.
There are many different ways to reduce energy consumption in your hotel and save money on your bills. Let’s take a look at some of the best tips for improving your hotel’s energy efficiency.
The most effective way of saving money on your energy bills is to compare suppliers with Business Energy Comparison. We find you the best deals for both small-business energy and large-business energy contracts within minutes.
We help you to compare rates and find the supplier that makes the most sense for your business.
As with most businesses, hotels consume a lot of energy. The areas that account for most of this usage is the bedrooms and additional facilities such as gyms.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways that you can reduce your energy use in your hotel and lower your bills. A great way of doing this is to compare deals using an energy broker or consultant. They’ll use their expertise to make sure that you’re getting the most favourable rates on the market.
Studies from The Department of Environment have found that heating and hot water account for around 70% of a hotel’s energy usage.
Yes, installing renewable energy technologies in your hotel will reduce the amount of energy it uses and lower your bills. Many hotels are now using solar panels to generate some or all of their electricity.
In March 2023, the UK Government replaced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme with the Energy Bills Discount Scheme to support businesses during the energy price crisis. As with the previous scheme, this is not a price cap. It offers per-unit discounts to eligible non-domestic energy customers.
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