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A July 2005 lighting retrofit of the 390-room Baltimore Marriott Hotel Valley Inn cut lighting energy expenditures over 50 percent by replacing outdated incandescent and fluorescent lamps in favor of dimmable, long-life plug-in and screw-in compact fluorescent lamps and high-efficiency T8 linear fluorescent lamps and electronic ballasts.
"We've helped the hotel hit a 50 percent improvement on kilowatt savings alone," says Richard G. Lubinski, President of Ohio-based energy consulting firm Think Energy Management, LLC, a consultant to HEI Hospitality, LLC, the company that owns and manages the property.
Lubinski's firm and HEI collaborated with GE Consumer & Industrial to develop a self-funding energy-efficiency initiative that not only cuts wasteful spending on energy for lighting, but also delivers lower maintenance costs and better quality lighting throughout the hotel.
Back-of-house operations at the hotel, previously illuminated by T12 40-watt linear fluorescent lamps operating on magnetic ballasts, were retrofitted with a highly efficient F28T8 lamp-ballast system that combines F28T8/SP35/UMX/ECO linear fluorescent lamps and electronic ballasts. For about 500 linear fluorescent fixtures, HEI saw light output improvements jump from 4,950 lumens to 5,170 lumens. Color rendering also improved.
Many down-lighting and general lighting applications in hallways, banquet rooms, conference rooms and guestrooms—where up to 200-watt incandescent lamps had been used—now feature dimmable plug-in or screw-in compact fluorescent lamps. A 42-watt CFL, for example, offers up to 72 percent energy savings compared with a 150-watt incandescent lamp used near a guestroom chair.
According to ENERGY STAR, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program that helps businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency, if U.S. hotels improved energy performance by 30 percent on average, annualized electricity bill savings would be nearly $1.5 billion. This represents a savings of approximately $365 per available room night per year for every hotel room in the country.