Starter Kit. Idea 421 of 500. Cluster 21
Energy audits and efficiency retrofits for the hotels, paid from the savings
The mechanism, from the book
The sun shines on every roof and the island imports its fuel.
The first step
Offer the general manager of one mid-sized hotel a free walk-through in return for 12 months of electricity and fuel bills. List the three largest savings you find, such as lighting, air conditioning and water heating, and propose to install them for a share of what the bills fall by. The proof is a manager who signs a savings-share agreement.
- Who pays first
- A hotel owner for whom energy is one of the largest running costs, who says yes because the fee is paid only from money actually saved.
- What leaves today
- Energy wasted in hotels is imported fuel paid for twice, once in the bill and once in foreign exchange; efficiency keeps that money on the island.
Ask first
- Sustainable Energy Authority. Ask whether support exists for energy audits in hotels.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether hotels are encouraged to report their energy use.
Check before you spend
A written savings-share agreement that defines how savings are measured, and that installation is done by qualified electricians.
Find out these three numbers
- What does the hotel spend on electricity and fuel each year?
- Which three savings are the largest?
- What share of savings will the manager sign for?
A comparison from the book
Energy, first. Chapter Fourteen
"In 2022 the country ran out of the dollars to pay for the fuel it imports."
Every unit a hotel saves is fuel the island does not have to buy with dollars.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.