How-To Keep Your Cool During an
Unexpected HVAC Outage
due to an outage in the supporting unit.
Unfortunately, before the replacement unit
could arrive, the primary unit also shut
down…causing the destination hotel and
its guests to heat up to 94˚ F.
Due to the lack of a proactive contingency
plan and the remote island location of the
hotel where a temporary cooling source was
not immediately available, the facility had to
refund or find other arrangements for their
guests, resulting in significant revenue losses
and increased risk for reputation damage.
In today’s global economy, every second of business
time is crucial and can represent millions of dollars in
revenue, or lost revenue if an unexpected event happens
for which there was no pre-planning.
This is especially true for the booming billion
dollar hospitality industry where according to
a recent Deloitte report, occupancy demand
will double by 2018. However, older hotel
buildings increasingly require routine maintenance to sustain operations. So what to do
when your warmer-climate destination hotel
incurs issues with its vital cooling system
and must go offline in order to make repairs?
Many hotels are turning to temporary cooling
solutions as their plan B.
A hotel’s ability to respond to an unexpected
HVAC disruption in the heat of the moment
is vital to its financial success and competitiveness. Contingency planning should be
a mandatory element of operations management, not an afterthought. By planning
ahead and leveraging a temporary cooling
provider to mitigate HVAC downtime, hotel
managers can improve their balance sheet
by avoiding high-cost capital expenditure
(CAPEX) commitments on short- to mid-term
duration needs.
An effective contingency plan requires working knowledge of the facility’s daily needs,
its current equipment, and who to call in an
emergency. Work with a temporary cooling
provider as part of the contingency planning
process to ensure chillers, cooling towers
and air conditioners can be placed very
quickly during an unexpected outage and
meet immediate cooling system requirements. However, it is also important the
provider also understands how to engineer a
system that seamlessly ties into the existing
cooling process and can match equipment
specific to the environmental demand. Each
hotel’s cooling system is unique and has
different needs should, for example, they be
water-cooled or air-cooled…there is no such
thing as one-size fits all.
For one major resort hotel in the Bahamas, a
facility that on a daily basis hosts hundreds
of visitors and enacts thousands of business
transactions, their cooling solution comprising two 450-ton chillers required replacement
Engineers from Aggreko were secured and
responded within 72 hours to assess the
cooling demand, quickly design a solution
and install a temporary system using one
400-ton air-cooled chiller that matched the
hotel’s current needs. However, the project
faced some challenges as the hotel thought
the system could be powered by its own 800
Amp breaker, which turned out to be only a
600 Amp breaker and failed shortly after the
install. Acting nimbly, Aggreko successfully
reengineered its unit to match the power
available until the customer found a solution.
The custom design proved effective and
ensured the non-stop delivery of cool air
into the hotel until the original replacement
unit arrived, allowing the facility to reopen
its doors, welcome guests and ramp-up
operations.
Head Offices
Americas (USA)
Europe, Middle East & Africa (UK)
Asia Pacific (Singapore)
800.AGGREKO
+44 1543 476100
+65 6862 1501
Aggreko operates from over 200 locations
throughout the world. For the location nearest
you please go to:
www.aggreko.com/contact