Telkonet Wins Energy Management Contract with Columbia Sussex Hotel Group

Telkonet, Inc., a provider of centrally managed solutions for integrated energy management, networking, building automation, and proactive support services, has won a contract with Columbia Sussex, a national developer and manager of more than 70 hotels and casinos across 30 states. Approximately 1,300 guestrooms in the Doubletree in Rochester, NY, the Sheraton in Philadelphia City Center, and the Westin in St. Maarten have been equipped with the Telkonet SmartEnergy™ (TSE) in-room, occupancy driven energy management system, with additional properties scheduled for TSE implementation by the end of the year. After an analysis of product offerings, TSE won on the basis of its flexibility, scalability, and simplicity, interfacing with all of the various types of HVAC systems throughout the Columbia Sussex hotel properties.

Columbia Sussex hotel properties are regarded for their green practices and energy reducing measures, including installing solar hot water systems, supporting alternative energies, and providing preferred parking spaces for hybrid cars at its corporate office. Telkonet’s energy efficiency solution forms a part of this ongoing strategy, as Columbia Sussex project manager Scott Yung explains.

“We are truly impressed with the versatility of Telkonet’s system and its ability to manage our range of HVAC systems, such as PTAC units, four pipe systems, two pipe systems with electric heat, and split systems,” said Yung. “Telkonet’s advanced solution gives us tremendous flexibility to define how our HVAC systems control the heating and air conditioning—we are not limited to pre-assigned settings. And, with Telkonet SmartEnergy’s intrinsic scalability, we can install it as a fast deployment standalone system instantly to control energy usage and savings, or network the system with a property management system as part of a longer term strategy.”

With U.S. hotels spending $2,196 per available room each year on energy—6% of all operating costs—implementing an effective energy-efficiency system along with green operating procedures, can significantly improve a hotel’s profitability and bottom line. For example, a 10% reduction in energy consumption would have the same fiscal effect as increasing the average daily room rate by $0.62 in limited service hotels and by $1.35 in full service hotels.

“Controlling energy costs and demonstrating environmental responsibility is clearly a top priority for the hospitality industry,” commented Jeff Sobieski, Telkonet’s COO. “We are prioritizing new ways of encouraging this process, including working closely with government organizations and utilities on a range of rebate programs to help offset the initial equipment and installation costs. We are delighted to work with green focused organizations such as Columbia Sussex, where we can make a tangible difference to lower operational energy costs and help realize their environmental objectives.”

Telkonet SmartEnergy reduces the cooling and heating of unoccupied guest rooms using occupancy sensors, along with thermostats or PTAC controllers. With its patented Recovery Time™ technology, it maintains an energy efficient room temperature when vacant, and when occupied, returns to the guest’s preferred temperature within a select number of minutes, set by property management. For Yung, being able to set the recovery time for all properties all at once is a major time saver, providing consistent performance across all hotels, ensuring guest comfort, and delivering maximum room-by-room energy savings.

Central to TSE’s position are several principal unique features:

  • A customizable thermostat that enables flexibility in defining the energy management system parameters, ensuring the maximum deliverable energy savings and optimum performance
  • Complete control over defining the Sequence of Operations, optimizing the thermostat to meet a wide range of specific requirements for each heating and cooling stage, such as a pre-defined amount of time to implement each stage
  • An assured, future-proofed design, using flash upgradeable CPU via the serial port with a variety of BAUD rates. For networked systems, the firmware image can be reflashed over the Internet.