“By 2025, buildings will be the single largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gas on our planet”

Opening the door to your hotel room, a soft and genial voice welcomes you by name as the blinds magically recede, shedding light on a sleek space alive with futuristic fantasy…

This utopian vision is one we’re all acquainted with. From the penknife efficiency of Korben Dallas’ apartment in ‘The Fifth Element’, to the symbiotic relationship between the starship enterprise and its crew, buildings of the future are expected to know what we need, and provide it to us quickly, efficiently, and with the minimum of fuss. However readily these imaginings emerge from the world of science fiction, their place in reality has been just out of reach for over half a century. Fortunately the digital revolution is changing the game, and energy efficiency is providing the playing field. In a rush to make business consume utilities more efficiently, buildings are becoming more reactive to the people that occupy them, and laying the foundations for truly interactive spaces.

Fifth Element Short Clip – Dallas Wakes Up

When it comes to smart resource management, there is one maxim that defines the challenge: ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’, and indeed close monitoring of your building’s energy performance is the first step to any effective remedial strategy. It usually leads to the introduction of more efficient technologies; from LEDs to heat pumps, and helps identify times when things can simply be turned off. Impassioned staff training can also inspire more sustainable business practice, but there are a number of scenarios where controlling gas, water, and electricity consumption can be a little trickier. I wish here to draw attention to one such arena, the hotel, which is leading the way in dynamic building management systems (BMS), and taking the vision of smarter buildings a little closer to that elusive frontier.

Directing a well-informed and motivated workforce is invariably the first step to improving a hotel’s energy efficiency. Ensuring cleaners turn off lights when they’ve finished in a room, or close windows if the heating is on, is a good start. It demonstrates the sort of low-hanging fruit typically engaged by well-intentioned hotel management. However encouraging guests to aid this process is considered an area fraught with danger. Being asked to reuse our towel or take a shorter shower can seem to some like an affront on the luxury and comfort intrinsic to the rooms price. To others it may appear like an attempt at cutting costs under a thinly veiled claim of ‘climate consciousness’, otherwise known as ‘greenwashing’. Keeping the message fresh for staff and guests is never an easy job, but this sort of initiative continues to offer the quickest return on investment compared to most engineered solutions. However these gains are easily lost with a change in staff, or allowed to dissolve as efforts are concentrated on other areas of the business. Efficient appliances and behavioural change will continue to provide significant cost and carbon savings for the savvy manager, but for those attuned to the digital revolution there is increasingly a third way.

Where monitoring meets control, intelligent BMS promises a world where the space we inhabit reacts not only to the temperature inside the room or outside the window, but also to our own body heat and movement patterns. If a window is opened, a message is relayed to the automated control hub to reduce the output of the heating system, or shut off an air conditioning unit. If everybody leaves the room, a PIR sensor informs the control hub to turn off the television and lights, and allow the temperature to revert to a default. Rooms that react to a guest’s presence are by no means new, most of us are familiar with the keycard approach, but where new generation sensors and controls interact with cloud technology and the ubiquity of smart phones, the future of energy management becomes a little more exciting.

An integrated monitoring system can help management determine accurate occupancy rates, or indicate to a cleaner which rooms are vacant at any one time. When a guest arrives to check in, the heating or cooling appliances can kick in immediately to ensure the room is at a comfortable temperature when they walk in the door. One example of an intelligent BMS improving efficiency involved a large number of short stay serviced apartments managed from a centralised office. Consultants from ‘Echome’ resolved to improve energy efficiency as well as streamline logistical procedures by linking monitoring and control systems remotely over the cloud. Instead of head office having to organise a key transfer for every changeover, guests were able to call up and have the door remotely unlocked when they arrived, to find the keys inside on the dining table, having been left there by the cleaner. Moreover, the occupancy detectors act as a security measure, notifying staff when an unrecognized body is in the apartment.

Passive Infrared (PIR) Detectors on lights and urinals, or thermostatically controlled heating systems are by no means revolutionary technologies, but the ways these separate controls are able to interact and integrate through digital innovation is leading to new levels of building interactivity. We can already use our phones to activate a preset indoor environment to match our mood, and use the same app to turn off the music and start up a film, all without moving a muscle (well maybe two muscles). By making sustainability fun, interactive, and truly dynamic, the chances of an occupier actually engaging with the techno fixes engineers implement increases significantly, and the savings speak for themselves.

The hotel is an obvious example where the applications of this technology are so numerous, the energy savings so tangible, and the economies of scale so inviting, that these intelligent building controls are becoming an industry norm. Whether these systems have a clear financial benefit in the domestic sphere is yet to be seen, though their appeal to the tech savvy homeowner are obvious. As far as energy efficiency is concerned, I would argue that these technologies can only go so far, and will never be able to replicate the efficacy of wholehearted change in business culture pioneered by those who take the challenge of resource conservation seriously. Nevertheless, these automated processes will continue to provide the information to supplement a sustainability initiative, and indeed lighten the burden on management for controlling consumption on a micro level.

At Echome we have been watching the evolution of intelligent controls for some time now, and the recent Ecobuild exhibition has done much to qualify the viability and cost effectiveness of such solutions. The integration of monitoring, control, and BMS systems is at last becoming a reality that many can ill afford to ignore. If you would like any advice about how these technologies apply to your property, or indeed any advice about becoming more sustainable and reducing utility expenditure, then get in touch.

Contact nick@echome.co.uk

or call our head office on 020 3327 1078

After spending five days selling sustainability to 45,000 at the UK’s biggest hotel and hospitality exhibition, we’re pleased to report an unprecedented interest in making businesses leaner and greener. It seems that, more than ever, those of you operating hotels, restaurants, golf clubs, and leisure centres are realising that a few technical and behavioural changes can turn into thousands saved on utility bills. Its been great to hear about all the improvements some of you have been making to your properties. From rainwater harvesting to LED lighting we’ve seen it all, but there is ALWAYS more that can be done. That’s why we’re offering a free assessment to anyone looking to making their business more efficient. As busy as we are fulfilling this promise to everyone we met at hotelympia, do get in touch if this sounds like it’s up your street.

call 020 3327 1078
email info@echome.co.uk

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