It’s no secret that Lack of water around the world is real. More than 40% of the world’s population is already affected by water stress, according to the United Nations (UN), and the threat is growing. By 2030, the World Resources Institute estimates that global water demand will exceed supply by 56% if nothing changes.
However, supply is only half the problem. Water scarcity is a combination of two factors: quantity and quality. A UN assessment of waters in 89 countries showed that only 60% have good ambient water quality. In most countries, water quality data are not available at all, meaning that more than three billion people are at risk because the state of their freshwater resources is simply unknown.
This mixture of decreasing amount of water and decreasing Water quality adds up to a significant business risk; a risk that hotel properties around the world are currently exposed to. Despite these concerns, the belief remains that water is both cheap and accessible. It is common to consider the effects of water on hotel operations only to the extent indicated on a property’s municipal water and sewage bills. In fact, the value of water and its impact on hotels is often much higher than what operators realize.
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The hidden costs of hotel water
If you consider Water in a hotel, some costs are obvious: showers, pools, fountains, Cooling towers and landscaping. In addition, water can influence regulatory risks, reputational risks and the general availability of water basins. Many operators also overlook the effects of water on a hotel’s energy use, maintenance / engineering, and equipment life.
These effects drive up operating expenses in the form of higher operating costs, labor costs, and earlier than expected capital expenditures.
While water is cheap in many communities today, it probably won’t stay that way. Energy is expensive. Since it takes a lot of energy to use water that has to be pumped, heated, cooled and treated, less water consumption means lower energy costs. Using less energy also means fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s an obvious boon to any hotel chain’s reputation, but it’s not the only one. When you operate in an arid region, you don’t want to clash with the public and prioritize travelers’ water needs over those of the local community. This can affect the brand well beyond where the situation occurs.
Reduce, reuse and recycle
Because hotels use water in so many ways, operators have a myriad of options to try to cut water, energy, and other operating costs. Examples are laundry, kitchen, pool, and cooling towers. This often includes one of the greatest opportunities Water supply of cooling towers.
A 2015 industry survey of operating costs confirmed that electricity, gas and fuel are the largest category of spending, accounting for an average of 71% of total hotel spending. Water followed with 24% and other ancillary costs with 5%. Water treatment affects 95% of hotel spending and affects electricity, water, and gas / fuel consumption.
It is important to remember that one of the main purposes of a cooling tower is actually to Reuse water. Hotels with cooling towers use water to remove heat from guest rooms and public areas and release that heat into the outside air, which ultimately cools the interior. Once the water has completed a single heat removal cycle, the goal is to reuse that water as many times as possible before it goes down the drain (also known as blowdown). More reuse cycles mean less water consumption, which is good for both the environment and the hotel’s bottom line.
Quality first
This recycling concept seems simple enough, but there is a catch. This is where water quality becomes a problem and the case for water treatment becomes clear: the water that enters a hotel is anything but clean. Incoming water, whether from municipal springs or wells, contains minerals, bacteria, and other microorganisms that can cause several expensive headaches.
The first concern is size. Untreated water can calcify the pipes of the cooling system. If left untreated, limescale can build up to drastically reduce the efficiency of heat transfer and increase both energy consumption and costs.
The second problem is biofouling. Fouling can be even more insulating than lime and therefore has an even greater impact on heat transfer, energy consumption and operating costs. Untreated colonies of Water-based bacteria can double in just 20 minutes, so the problem can escalate quickly.
Finally, the third problem is corrosion. In this case, you cannot simply return metal to pipes, cooling towers, or chillers where it will corrode. These items need to be repaired or replaced, which can cost a hotel hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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Real results
What difference can cooling water treatment make for a hotel? Here are two real-world examples that the Nalco Water team saw.
A world-famous hospitality company had a 400-room hotel in Singapore. The property had four chillers with a total capacity of 2,500 tons of cold. The hotel management tried to lower their water bill as it seemed to be increasing steadily over time.
After evaluating the cooling system, the hotel put in place a proper water treatment program and saw several significant improvements. The treatment program allowed them to increase their cooling tower cycles from three to seven, saving 6 million gallons of water and $ 29,000 in water costs per year. Additionally, the treatment program resulted in a 4.5% improvement in cooler efficiency, adding 43,738 kWh of energy savings and an additional $ 4,200 in annual cost savings to the hotel’s bottom line. The operator not only achieved its goal of reducing water expenditure, but also achieved significant sustainability gains.
In another case, a luxury hotel with 300 rooms operated three cooling machines with a total of 1,200 tons of cold. This operator focused on reducing energy consumption, which seemed too high. An assessment of the cooling system revealed the cause of the problem. Extensive scaling and fouling problems resulted in decreased chiller efficiency, causing the equipment to use more energy than usual to compensate. With a new water treatment program, the operator has seen an improvement in average chiller efficiency of around 9%. This contributed to an annual energy saving of 189,216 kWh worth $ 43,520 per year.
The program also improved water usage in the cooling towers, where the average water cycles increased from 3 to 4.5. This resulted in annual water savings of 480,000 gallons and cost savings of $ 2,500 per year. The operator has achieved its original goal and has made great strides in other areas.
These cases could not make the relationship between water savings and water quality any clearer. Regardless of whether an operator is motivated by operating cost savings, sustainability, or both, cooling water systems with a focus on quality problems offer great potential to achieve their goals.
