It should come as no surprise that the U.S. has major problems with its power grid.
We had a massive heat wave this week, most of it hanging over the South, Southeast and the Midwest. CNN reports that this heat dome put more than 125 million Americans under heat alerts because of the danger posed to their health.
Severe storms hit the Upper Midwest and Ohio River Valley, knocking out power for more than 620,000 utility customers, CNN reported in another article. We also saw last year what happens when extreme cold hit Texas, knocking out a significant portion of utilities in the state’s independent grid.
So what does that mean for hoteliers? I think it’s one hell of a push to find ways to support your properties’ energy needs separate from their local power grids. There has been a lot of talk, especially in recent years, about hotels’ sustainability efforts. There’s been quite a bit of action, too. Much of that was spurred by the need to reduce, or even completely end, use of fossil fuels as sources of energy and heat. That’s an absolutely noble reason and will help as we try to fight against climate change.
But the argument I’m making here is a separate business case. When you lose power in your hotel, particularly during a heat wave, you’re in trouble. Sure, backup generators will cover some of your needs, but you can’t run everything off them forever, and last I saw, fuel’s pretty expensive and isn’t getting cheaper any time soon.
Hopefully you’ve already made investments in energy-efficient products to cut down on how much electricity your property needs, including air conditioning, but in terms of helping yourself generate power, solar power is generally the way to go. Unfortunately, it won’t be everyone’s solution, but it would likely be of help to a large number of hoteliers. Wind turbines would be great, but again, I don’t see many hotels installing those.
The two main benefits I see from installing solar panels are the ability to generate your own power and helping reduce your property’s burden on the local grid, easing the overall strain and helping the community at large.
Any investment like solar panels requires a study that will determine the return, but I would say any hotel that has power outages or rolling blackouts because the grid can’t handle everyone running their air conditioning all the time needs to factor those problems into their equations.
Granted, the amount of electricity your solar array could generate is going to depend on a number of factors, such as geography and sun exposure as well as how much space you have to maximize the amount of sunlight the panels can collect. The other factor here is how much electricity your property consumes on average, but even if you don’t produce more than you use, it would be better than relying completely on your local grid.
During a blackout or temporary outage, the combination of solar power along with battery storage could help you at least keep key functions running without having to rely too much on backup generators.
Along with helping keeping your basic business needs going, your property could act as a cooling station for your employees, your guests and your neighbors who may be without power. Your hotels could become true community hubs by giving people a break from dangerously high temperatures.
Given how supply-chain disruption is an ongoing problem, it may be too late to install such a system at your property this summer, but I wouldn’t wait. The way things have been going, I’d say next summer is going to be another scorcher.
You can reach me at bwroten@hotelnewsnow.com or at @HNN_Bryan.
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