Controlled kitchen ventilation slashes energy costs for Marriott hotel
Swindon Marriott Hotel is enjoying a 30% reduction in kitchen energy costs following the installation of a Cheetah system by Food Industry Technical. The installation is expected to reduce energy costs by over £10 000 a year and achieve a return on investment of 14 months. CO2 emissions are being reduced by about 50 t a year.
Cheetah monitors cooking activity and automatically modulates the speed of the extract and supply fans to increase volume at busy times and reduce it at quieter times to achieve significant energy savings.
Before this installation, the extract canopy system was using over 260 kWh a day. Since the installation of Cheetah, which incorporates inverter drives, energy consumption was reduced to only 99.6 kWh a day.
Before this system was installed, the fans ran at full speed for most of the time.
The system comprises various sensors to measure temperature, smoke, steam and airflow in the extract and supply ducts to determine the optimum flow rate of the fans to achieve comfortable conditions in the kitchen.
The supply fan also delivers heating and cooling, so there will be significant savings on conditioned air.
The success of this project has led to the Cheetah system being included in Marriott’s 2011 energy-initiatives programme for Europe — covering 62 hotels in the UK and Ireland and 121 across Europe.
