Intercontinental Hotel Cuts Energy By 40%

A landmark hotel in Madrid is saving energy and meeting its environmental goals after
equipping its heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems with high efficiency motors.

Energy usage has been reduced by 445,000 kWh a year – enough to boil two million kettles of water.

Through its „Green Engage‟ sustainability programme, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has
enabled its hotels and resorts to reduce energy consumption by up to 25 per cent between 2013 and
2017. A key area of focus in energy reduction is the HVAC systems that can use between 60 to 80 per
cent of all the energy consumed by a hotel.

The IHG Green Engage system is a business-wide, online sustainability programme helping its hotels
manage and report their use of energy, carbon, water and waste, thereby minimising overall
environmental impact and utility costs. Participation in the IHG Green Engage system is a global
standard for all IHG hotels and it recognises their progress through four levels.

200 solutions

The programme recommends more than 200 green solutions, implementation plans and support
systems to help hotels achieve their action plans and targets. InterContinental Madrid has already
achieved all levels – the first one to achieve the highest savings in Europe – and it won an internal
award in recognition of this.

Located on the Paseo de la Castellana, the Five-Star hotel has stood as a landmark in Spain‟s hospitality
industry throughout its 65-year history. It welcomes around 100,000 guests a year including presidents,
royalty, celebrities and business leaders.

The hotel recognises that sustainability is important for its guests and aims to make it easy for them to
stay at a hotel that shares their values.
“Through the IHG Green Engage program, every hotel has to achieve defined environmental goals. But
there can never be any compromise on comfort or convenience for our guests,” said Esteban
Rodriguez, Chief Engineer of the InterContinental Hotel Madrid.

Energy survey identified areas of low efficiency

The hotel has eight pump groups that serve its HVAC systems as well as hot water supply for guest
rooms, kitchens and other facilities. Although these systems were well maintained and in good
condition, the hotel management was concerned that their energy efficiency levels were below current
best practice. Therefore, the hotel called in ABB‟s official value provider in Madrid, Exel Industrial, to
carry out a detailed energy survey. The survey revealed that the hotel‟s energy use was high,
particularly in the existing baseplate pumps, where both the motors and the pumps were inefficient.

“The study showed that 40 per cent of energy could be saved by decreasing the frequency of the
motor by 10 per cent,” said Enrique Bernad Lillo, Quality and Financial Manager at Exel Industrial.

Improved process stability and energy savings

ABB recommended that the pumping systems should be upgraded with variable speed drives (VSDs)
and electric motors with the IE3 energy efficiency classification that is now mandatory for compliance
with EC regulations.

In 2016, a total of 13 ABB HVAC drives and 16 IE3 motors were installed in new baseplate pump
groups and integrated into building management systems. Using VSDs to regulate the pumps provides
the system with greater stability and considerable energy savings, as the motor speeds are now
adjusted to match the precise demand at any given time.

The drives and motors also offer operational benefits that go beyond energy savings as they help to
lower running noise while offering smooth starting. This reduces the stress on the pumping systems,
helping to extend maintenance intervals.

Maintenance

Overall maintenance needs are also being decreased by a longer pump life span, especially as the VSDs
can eliminate the potentially harmful effects of pump cavitation, which refers to voids in liquids that
implode near a metal surface and trigger intense shockwaves inside the pump.

Payback in less than two years

“Our ABB intelligent motion solutions enable energy savings of around 40 per cent, helping IHG not
only to meet but exceed its Green Engage goals. Over a year that adds up to 445,000 kilowatt hours
(kWh), cutting the hotel‟s annual energy bill by more than £28,000 to deliver a projected return on
investment in less than two years,” said Morton Wierod, President of ABB‟s Motion business. “This is a
great example of how our variable speed drives, combined with our high efficiency motors are
providing the most affordable, effective and sustainable means of saving energy and optimising
operations for our customers.”

Article written by Brian Shillibeer

Probiotic Cleaners And Good & Bad HVAC Bacteria

For FMs concerned about in indoor air quality and the toxins that go into their buildings,
Vern Klein explains how the latest specialist HVAC cleaning chemicals are both effective
and non-toxic.

Disinfectants and surface cleaners have traditionally been used to clean HVAC plant but these are
either quite toxic, requiring COSHH compliance or ineffective at cleaning below the biofilm.

Health and wellbeing and the effect air quality has on this has been making headlines. The Stoddart
Review found that employees‟ health and wellbeing has a significant impact on productivity, citing that
happy workers are 12% more productive. Key parameters for a healthy and productive workforce
include indoor air quality (IAQ), temperature, light and noise levels.

With companies keen to benefit from the advantages of a healthy, happy workforce, how can facilities
managers help improve IAQ, and therefore health and wellbeing? One answer is a re-thinking of
cleaning HVAC plant which has resulted in the introduction of probiotic cleaning technology, a totally
new alternative to conventional cleaning disinfectants.

Even cleaner

So what is probiotic cleaning technology? Intensive R&D has developed a biological product containing
billions of positive organisms which leave a healthy microflora on the surface, offering a longer lasting
clean. This promotes a healthier indoor environment with probiotic „good‟ microbes working to combat
the build-up of bad bacteria long after the service and maintenance is complete, ensuring a product
remains clean in-between service intervals.

Conventional cleaners only clean the surface and other non-aggressive cleaners only mask the biofilm
(microscopic layer). Probiotic cleaners are different as they are able to provide deep microscopic
cleaning beyond the biofilm, removing both the visible and invisible dirt and eliminating dust, mould,
bacteria and other pollution, as well as neutralising bad, musty odours caused by fungi and bacteria.

Growth of resistant bacteria

Intensive use of conventional disinfectant or antibacterial cleaners can actually encourage the growth
of highly resistant, harmful micro-organisms. In contrast, probiotic cleaners, such as Storm Chemicals
Green XL, do not have the problem of bacterial resistance. They offer an intensive but gentle clean
which goes beyond the biofilm and ensures a stable and healthy microbial environment.
Clean and green

Probiotics offer environmental credentials too, making them particularly attractive to FMs working on
sustainable and green building applications. Probiotic cleaners are 100% biodegradable, meaning that
FMs do not have to worry about COSHH restrictions for transport, use and storage, since they are
harmless to people and animals, and environmentally friendly too.

Improved efficiency

Energy efficiency is also high up on the agenda for businesses today, with companies expecting
products to be energy efficient. Air conditioning and refrigeration units use more energy than any other
building services plant and whilst huge advances have been made to manufacture new, more energy
efficient AC units, effective cleaning of existing AC units is essential to energy saving.

To achieve maximum energy saving and comply with energy efficiency legislation, long-term probiotic
protection means AC will be cleaner for longer and so work more efficiently. As a result this would
improve energy efficiency of AC equipment and result in fewer call backs. This new breed of cleaner
can improve energy efficiency of ACR equipment by up to 30%, a significant amount for building
owners.

Ticking both boxes

As an environmentally friendly cleaning technology, probiotic cleaners tick all the right boxes. They help
ease both health and wellbeing and energy efficiency concerns, as well as extending the time that kit
remains clean in between services. Add on the fact that equipment will work more efficiently, resulting
in fewer call backs as well as safe to handle and store and probiotic cleaners clearly become the AC
equipment cleaner of choice for FMs.

Picture: Green XL Probiotic Cleaner in use

Vern Klein is Head of Business Development – Storm Chemicals at Aspen Pumps

Article written by Brian Shillibeer