Luxury hotel's next target is its dated diesel boiler system
Greener swimming: The hotel's poolside and gardens are now illuminated with energy-saving lighting EFFICIENCY is a matter of managing work processes and mindset, says Shangri-La's area director of engineering Seow Tin Hwee.
'You can put in $20 million to replace equipment and will straightaway see savings. But if you don't keep watch on how that equipment is used, returns will drop within 2-3 years,' he says.
Shangri-La must be one of the few hotels where, despite not having replaced the 36-year-old diesel boiler system used to heat water, energy intensity is still a relatively low 378 KWh/m2, within the top 25th percentile of Singapore's four- and five-star hotels, according to an NUS study. And when the boiler is replaced within the year - the hotel has budgeted nearly $1 million to replace it with a heat recovery system by this year-end - it could slash the figure significantly.
The hotel improved energy use by over 10 per cent by reorganising the way it works, says Mr Seow. For example, it is looking at redesigning its kitchen. Instead of keeping a large oven that is fired all day to cook and reheat food (which leads to wasted heating capacity during restaurants' quiet hours between meal-times), the hotel can save energy by using smaller ovens to prepare food when needed.
Other tricks include: double or triple insulating hot and cold water pipes so that heat is not lost or gained while the water is transmitted; landscaping paths and corridors so they are cooler; and using low- wattage lamps to light up the hotel's gardens in the evening. Mr Seow reckons the hotel has spent over $1 million on landscaping and lighting alone - though presumably not all the benefits of this go towards efficiency.
The hotel could cut energy use by another 5 per cent by calibrating its cooling system to react more quickly to slight changes in temperature, Mr Seow says. Currently, the temperature sensors of its Building Management System (BMS) can tell if there is a 0.5 degree Celsius change in temperature. He is upgrading the sensors to respond to a 0.1 degree change - which means the chillers (which use 0.65 KWh per tonne of chilled water) won't run so hard when it's already too cold, thus saving energy.
The chillers themselves were installed when Shangri-La also replaced its old system with non-CFC-generating equipment eight years ago. The hotel installed a system that was efficient then; an audit in 1999 reported electricity bill savings of over $1 million a year.
The environmental programme at Shangri-La is part of a corporate social responsibility drive by its corporate office in Hong Kong. Under the programme, any project with a payback period of six months or less automatically gets the green light; others are taken on a case-by-case basis, and the hotel budgets about $1-3 million a year for efficiency measures.
Mr Seow's personal goal? To cut total energy use by 12 per cent and electricity use by at least 3 per cent this year.
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