Guoman Hotel Management (UK) Ltd manages an exclusive collection of hotels in London, and has plans to expand its luxury developments overseas. Hotels are high users of energy and are looking for practical ways to lessen their impact on the environment, it was a key priority for the company’s Head of Property to reduce energy costs and in turn the hotels’ carbon footprint.
Guoman, which means "international gateway" in Mandarin, owns Thistle hotels with the range of Guoman hotels established under the luxury hotel brand. Hotels in London include the Charing Cross, The Cumberland, The Royal Horseguards and The Tower. Guoman Hotel Management (UK) Ltd has an established public commitment to driving down its energy costs and reducing the size of its carbon footprint.
The company is actively seeking ways to reduce its impact on the environment and works with suppliers, partners and team members to ensure that everyone understands the environmental effect of their operations. All areas of the business are targeted with reducing energy and water consumption and increasing recycling levels.
Energy consumption is the largest environmental impact of the business and the company explores and implements as appropriate, any initiative that could reduce energy consumption. These include low energy lighting, regular boiler efficiency audits, maximum water temperatures and movement sensor-controlled lighting.
Guoman aims to exceed the minimum standards that the business is required to achieve by environmental legislation and sets the general managers challenging environmental targets to meet. Performance in each financial year is accurately measured and a ‘Green Hotel of the Year’ is nominated in the company’s annual performance awards.
Driving down energy costs and CO2 emissions was a major challenge for the company.
In October 2008, David Hannah established a process to identify the right source of expertise to help him fulfil his obligations at Guoman Hotel Management (UK) Ltd. Following calls to specialist contractors for their input and detailed research the name Powerstar came to the fore.
Following discussions and onsite surveys the decision was taken to commission Powerstar - the only voltage optimisation system wholly designed and manufactured in the UK – to provide a solution to the more efficient use of incoming energy at many of the company’s hotels.
Savings in the total electricity consumption from the Guoman hotel installations have hit an amazing 26.1% at the Thistle Hyde Park Hotel. Elsewhere, savings have never been less than 11.5%.
In addition to reducing the cost of energy bills, Powerstar has also enabled the company to achieve significantly lower CO2 emissions and help to lessen the impact on the environment. Machinery is also running at the voltage it is designed to operate at leading to more efficient use, less need for maintenance and an expectation that it will last for longer before needed to be replaced.
David Hannah Head of Property, Guoman Hotel Management (UK) Ltd said: "In commercial terms Powerstar came up with pretty well the ideal solution. They struck just the right balance between finding a means of installing a fail safe system that would significantly reduce our energy bills while achieving the hurdle rates for capital investment. From the outset, the Powerstar team was pro-active, commercially aware and able to demonstrate a high level of competence in both analysing our technical & subsequent installation requirements within a live hotel requirement. They promised technical support, professionalism and minimum fuss and that was precisely what they delivered!
"We were more than confident that the calculated savings in terms of energy consumption were realistic however, we are delighted to learn that the savings have in some cases exceeded our expectations."