Crowne Plaza Alice Springs has reduced its carbon footprint with the installation of the largest commercial building mounted solar panel system in the Southern Hemisphere. The $3 million project was a joint initiative between Crowne Plaza Alice Springs and the Australian government’s Alice Solar City Project and comprises over 1326 individual photovoltaic solar modules.
The rooftop combined solar arrays will generate nearly 1500kW of power per day and over 530,000kW per year – which equates to supplying enough power to supply more than 60 family homes and will supply a saving of up to 80% of the hotel’s power needs and reduce the hotel’s carbon footprint by 420 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year as well as assisting to reduce the total energy load on the Alice Springs town electricity grid by approximately 0.5% or about 250kW of the 50,000kW generated in summer.
Crowne Plaza Alice Springs has also implemented energy efficiency projects that have resulted in a 5.5% reduction in gas usage; a 25% reduction in electricity; a 17% reduction in water usage and a 30% reduction in CO² emissions. Some of these initiatives this property has undertaken to reduce its carbon footprint have been:
- The installation of ‘Energy Eye’ which allows the hotel to minimise the energy consumption of it’s air-conditioning by detecting whether or not a guestroom is occupied and can also detect when a guest room is occupied even when the guest is sleeping;
- The replacement of over 3110 light bulbs with energy efficient options;
- The instillation of Jemflo showerheads into all guest rooms saving 11,580KL of water each year (which is the equivalent of 30 Olympic sized swimming pools)
Together, these projects along with the solar PV project have significantly reduced Crowne Plaza Alice Springs’ hotel energy consumption and carbon footprint.
