malvernmugadzikwa
Business Writer
Globally, the hotel and travel industries are being impacted by rising energy costs.
But despite the necessity to maximise earnings, the sector’s leaders are working tirelessly to encourage hotels to adopt renewable energy.
With the cost of oil and gas expected to stay high for the foreseeable future, businesses that can generate their own energy from renewable sources would appear to be in an enviable position.
The recent eruption of a military conflict between Ukraine and Russian has disrupted the oil and gas supply chains, triggering massive increases of the commodities.
For hospitality group, Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG), energy management is crucial as it reduces operational costs and the institution’s carbon footprint.
Energy management includes controlling the consumption of energy in a variety of forms, including fuel, electricity, heating, cooling and steam.
“Our goal is to move to the use of renewable energy across all our hotels through the implementation of onsite solar farms,” RTG said in its 2021 annual report.
“The pilot project which will generate 300KVA, will be installed at Kadoma Hotel & Conference Centre in 2022.”
In recent years, dozens of locations have switched to solar power.
“Our strategy is to switch off switches in vacant rooms, use LED lights, energy savers and shifting of loads from on peak to off-peak periods,” said RTG.
To this end, the hospitality group identified the need to utilise the following electricity periods effectively: Peak period — is the period when electricity is expensive, Standard period – is the period when consumption is relatively low and the tariffs are generally nominal and off-peak — is the period when consumption and tariffs are low hence the hotel shift loads to off-peak.
But thanks to technological advancements, there are now a number of different options that can dramatically cut hotel energy costs.
“The positive impact of our energy management practice is to reduce the pressure on the national electricity grid, manage energy consumption and costs,” reads the report.
“Our goal is to reduce energy usage to not more than 2 percent of the hotel’s revenue by monitoring and evaluating consumption.”
RTG tracked the effectiveness of its actions through daily energy readings, weekly energy reports and monthly reviews.
“During the year, energy costs averaged 1.76 percent of revenue as compared to our target of 2 percent. The introduction of solar energy will have a positive impact,” said RTG.
Yes, both the scientific community and the general people have long recognized how energy pollution contributes to climate change.
However, it has only been recently that both governments and significant business organisations have started to recognise the need to go green in order to protect the globe from harmful climate change.
In 2021, RTG’s inflation adjusted revenue rose 17 percent to $2,8 billion. Occupancy levels were up 29 percent to 31 percent. Profit before tax rose 54 percent to $249 million.
Bongani Ndlovu