No matter how laid back a guest’s experience may be in Hawaii, the resort properties themselves cannot afford to lose sight of cost control. Energy management can be a major contributor to this effort, especially in a humid climate, as the Mauna Kea Beach resort on Hawaii testifies.

“We’ve had several systems installed over the years,” reports Ray Seaver, Director of Engineering at the property. “ We started with an IBM System 7, upgraded to Johnson Controls, and then migrated to an Alerton system when the property was renovated in 1995. They’ve always made a valuable contribution to cost control, but each generation has become increasingly more sophisticated, and more effective.”

What improvements have you seen? “The Alerton’s the first system we’ve had interfaced to the HIS front office system, so the guestroom units are now set back to a minimum level at check-out and reset again at check-in. We don’t overdo this; keeping the upper limit to 85° gives the HVAC enough time to bring the temperature down to be comfortable by the time the new guest arrives at the room.”

So how effective are the systems these days? “We did some before and after tests, and know that if we shut off the Alerton system at this point, now that we’ve been able to fine-tune it to the property’s characteristics, our energy consumption would increase over 20%. We could certainly run the place manually – but it wouldn’t be either smart or efficient.”

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