Hotel plant cost has three components:
energy cost, operations cost and maintenance cost. A Building Automation System (BAS) improves hotel performance by reducing justified on energy savings alone, without even considering the reduced maintenance cost or the improvement in operations
efficiency.

Energy Cost
Many hotel professionals do not have a balanced view of first cost and energy cost.

To test yourself, try to answer the following question. If you buy a new 10 hp motor and operate it continuously, how long before the energy cost to operate the motor equals the capital cost to buy the new motor? If you are like most hotel professionals, your “gut feel” indicates one to two years. In fact, the correct answer, depending on local costs, works out to about two
months! Hotel professionals are often wrong by a factor of ten because they place so much importance on first cost and do not properly consider energy cost.
Operations Cost
There are two factors driving up the hotel plant operating cost:
• The systems being installed in hotels are growing increasingly complex, such as microprocessor-based bedside panels and in-room Internet connections
• Customers’ increasing expectations with respect to the quality of the environment – guest experience / customer satisfaction ratings have become the new battleground in the hospitality industry Maintenance Cost The hotel engineering department is often first on the cutting line in bad times and last in line for improvement during good times. Many hotel owners and managers initially plan to spend about 8% of their revenues on capital improvements each year. Unfortunately, most end up deferring improvements to save short-term expenses. The Solution A Building Automation System
A Building Automation System (BAS) can be installed in new or existing hotels. Microprocessor-based control panels are located in mechanical rooms and in risers. A backbone network is installed which connects the BAS control panels to computer terminals. The BAS monitors and controls the heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system and the • Electrical distribution system • Plumbing and sanitary system • Fire fighting and fire alarm Terminal in Engine ering Department Controls in Plant Room
Reducing Energy Cost
The first principle of management is that you cannot manage something until you measure it.
This concept also applies to energy management. The first step in an effective energy
management programme is an effective energy measurement system. Waiting for a monthly
utility bill from the accounting department is not an effective energy measurement system.
In all cases, the BAS will monitor the incoming power to the hotel. Some hotel engineers are
lucky enough to have the BAS monitor the power delivered to the plant as a separate reading.
What should the hotel engineer do with this information? Here are some tips:
• Plot the load profile of the incoming power, using samples taken on a 15-minute interval.
This will help identify the time of day when peaks are likely to occur. The hotel engineer
can explore what equipment can be turned off at that time to reduce demand charges.
• Check the consumption and demand readings from the BAS with the monthly readings
from the utility. There have been cases where the utility meter has been wrong and the
utility has accepted the BAS reading for billing purposes.
• Make the power information available on the hotel intranet so that, with proper password, the current and historical power can be viewed from any computer, even a dial-in laptop, using a standard Internet Explorer. • Keep track of the energy consumed by the plant