An article by Desy Nurhayati, Bali Daily.

Around 40 hotels, all members of the Bali Hotels Associations (BHA), participated in training recently to develop their knowledge of and skills in energy efficiency through the implementation of energy management practices.

The Technology Investment on Efficient Energy training for hotel engineers was held last week at Le Meridien Jimbaran, as part of the Indonesian Clean Energy Development (ICED) program funded by USAID.

Retno Soebagio, USAID’s senior communication advisor for the ICED program, said that Bali was part of the pilot program for Indonesia Hotel Benchmarking and Strategic Energy Management, together with Jakarta and Yogyakarta.

She explained that the program aimed to encourage the hotel industry’s participation in reducing energy usage, costs and greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5-10 percent annually through benchmarking and implementation of simple, no- or low-cost operation and maintenance measures, as well as investment in energy efficient technologies.

“Our experience working with more than 10,000 buildings in Asia shows that hotels that implement simple, no- and low-cost operation and maintenance measures can save up to 27 percent annually on their utility bills,” she said.

By implementing these measures with careful management of existing equipment, hotels did not need to purchase new equipment or hire outside staff, she added.

Initiated in March 2011 and run through September this year, ICED is a bilateral technical assistance program being funded by USAID to support the Indonesian government develop sustainable renewable energy resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from conventional fossil fuel sources.

Under the ICED program, USAID catalyzes efforts to reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions in hotels in Indonesia through development and deployment of a hotel energy benchmarking tool and energy efficiency pilot program. The results of this pilot program will be shared across other Southeast Asian countries.

With its close connections to the environment, tourism is considered a highly climate-sensitive economic sector. At the same time, the hospitality sector is a huge consumer of energy and thus is a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in increased global temperatures and climate change.

According to USAID, the Indonesian hotel sector has, since 2006, been at the forefront of growth in Southeast Asia, experiencing steady growth with annual increases of visitors between 9-13 percent.

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