Aitken Spence Hotels win most energy-efficient hotel award

Heritance Ayurveda Maha Gedara emerged the most energy efficient hotel in Sri Lanka by winning the award in the large scale hotel sector at the Sri Lanka National Energy Efficiency Awards 2012 which concluded recently.

This is the second consecutive year that Aitken Spence Hotels has been recognised at the awards. Last year Heritance Kandalama emerged winners of the Gold Flame award and this year Heritance Ayurveda Maha Gedara won the Silver Flame Award in the large-scale hotel sector.

Situated on the south western coast of Sri Lanka, the former Neptune Hotel was recognised for the efforts taken to leverage on innovative strategies in renewable energy.

Heritance Ahungalla and Heritance Tea Factory were also awarded merit certificates in the large scale hotel sector category while Bandarawela Hotel was awarded the merit certificate in the small scale hotel sector category.

The Hotels were honoured for their ability to demonstrate year-on-year energy reductions along with ongoing sustainability processes and energy management strategies.

The Sri Lanka National Energy Efficiency Awards is an annual event conducted by the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority for private and public sector institutions with the aim of recognising their contribution towards an energy efficient Sri Lanka.

"We are delighted to have been recognised for the efforts we have taken towards efficient utilisation, conservation and management of energy. Our hotels are constructed and operate with a strong, focused commitment towards reducing the environmental footprint associated with the development and operation of a hotel," said Vice President, Engineering, Aitken Spence Hotels, Rohitha Rajaratne.

A spokesman for the company said that Heritance Ayurveda Maha Gedara recently broke new ground by being the first hotel in the country to enter into a Net Metering Agreement using solar photovoltaic as the renewable energy source.

The Government approved the concept of Net Metering in August 2009. Net Metering is a special metering and billing agreement entered between utility companies and their individual customers which facilitates the connection of small, renewable energy generating systems to the power grid.

"The hotel has a solar hot water system for pre-heating the water before it is sent to the heat exchanger which acts as a storage for hot water. This reduces the furnace oil consumed by the boiler. The hotel will save 1,417 litres of furnace oil annually thus mitigating its carbon footprint by 4.6 tonnes," he said.