Bahrain starts ‘save energy’ drive

TNS

As much as BD165,000 can be saved a year as part of a new water and energy consumption campaign. It will initially focus on five-star hotels and aim to reduce consumption by three per cent in the next year.
The campaign was launched by the Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) in partnership with Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA) in the presence of representatives from 16 five-star hotels.
It was held at the Bahrain International
Exhibition and Convention Centre, where experts conducted lectures on the environmental and economic importance of conserving power. “(We want) to help hotels on the guidelines of utilising electricity and water in a reasonable manner,” BTEA president Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al Khalifa told the GDN.
“It’s not just helping the environment, but also cutting costs for them and making sure everything is efficient – it’s a win-win situation for everyone.” The campaign will initially cover the country’s five-star hotels because they are the biggest consumers, according to EWA distribution and customer services vice chief executive Adnan Fakhro.
“Hospitality is a very high consumption sector – you can’t control your guests, they’re luxury hotels, they have pools, people tend to waste water, there are gyms, showers,”
he said. “We are inviting 16 five-star hotels and the idea is to start a campaign now with the theme of reducing consumption of electricity and water.
“They can choose one or the other, or both of course, and aim to reduce it by 3pc. “At the end of the period, we’ll take measures and see how much they have reduced.
“Some might have reduced by one or
two per cent, some might not be able to reduce and some might even reach the 3pc reduction or more.
“We will work with them and we will start with the five-star hotels and then we will move on to others. “We thought we’d start with the big hotels because they’re the big consumption parties.” If each hotel reduced its energy consumption by 3pc then electricity would save BD138,985 and water would save BD27,000 a year.
However, since government subsidies on energy has been lifted, expatriates and the private sector will see their power bills rise gradually to 29 fils per unit by 2019.
By then the savings for electricity would climb to BD162,000 a year, explained Fakhro. Despite that the campaign’s main objective will be to reduce water consumption in
the country.
“We’re focusing on water because it’s a treasure for us and 80pc of our water comes from desalination plants, which is a very expensive process,” said Fakhro. “Prices are still low compared to how much it costs us.” He added that one of the most essential changes in some hotels would be installing auto-detectors in bathrooms.
“Changing the taps to automatic will save a lot,” he said. “The hotels also tend to overcool rooms – sometimes they complain about bills being high, but you walk into the meeting room and it’s freezing.
“Either the management need education, or they don’t care, or the tariff is so low that they don’t bother. “But now that the tariff is increasing, I’m sure they’ll start to care.”