28th of January, GREENinMED transnational workshop.
Summary
The conference included 19 representatives of energy and water technology companies, 3 hotel representativesas well as a hotel association representative, Mrs. Pnina Ben David, and 6 different consultants. We were honored by the presence of the EU Embassy representative – Ms.Chrystelle Lucas. Thirty guests arrived. The partner participation included 6 from Israel, 1 from Spain and 1 from France; the representative of the Israel Export Institute (the host) and the representative of the National Focal Point, representing the Foreign Ministry also came.
After the greeting words, by Ms.Chrystelle Lucas from the EU Embassy, she also explained the new GREEN initiatives of the European Union for the coming years.
Ms. Lucas and Ms. Ahallon at the workshop
During the first part of the Workshop, the partners presented the project objectives and the planned project course+ overview on three presentations given firstly, by Carmen Ayllon- from the Chamber of Spain (the Project leader), and secondly, by Clive Lipchin and Ella Fuksbrauner from the Arava Institute. Subsequently, issues and challenges of the hotel sector in Israel were presented by Mr.Avraham Israeli from IsWA.
Finally, a special guest, Mr. Nehemiah Ben Porat, presented a case study of the Lot Hotel at the Dead Sea, and its unique and water adaptations.
All the presentations will be available at ISWA’s website http://israelwater.org.il/
During the second part, the participants were divided into three working groups. Each group was attended by one representative of a hotel and several technology companies. The purpose was to create a discussion on important issues and needs of the hotels and the way to collaborate with various technologies for energy efficiency and water saving.
First group – Hilton hotel representative group:In this discussion group gathered people from various institutions companies such as:
- Joseph, chief engineer of the Hilton Tel Aviv hotel
- 3 PhD students from Tel Aviv University (TAU) working on advanced disinfection methods
- An owner of a corrosion protection company who also works on Legionella growth prevention in cooling towers
- An engineer from Aqwise, world leader on wastewater treatment
- A consultant in the field of green buildings
- An engineer from Nuf filtration, manufacturer and supplier of ultrafiltration systems
- An engineer from Smart Sense, a company dealing with increasing efficiency in energy consumer systems
Joseph, chief engineer of the Hilton Tel Aviv hotel quoted the following facts and figures:
- The annual energy consumption of the hotel equals 12,000,000 Kwh
- 40% of the energy consumption is for air conditioning
- 25% of the energy consumption is for lightning
- 15% of the energy consumption is for pumps, blowers etc.
- The swimming pools is operated on sea water that is pumped by the hotel and disinfected with oxygen water rather than chlorine due to its chemical composition
- There is no irrigation in the hotel
- The annual water consumption of the hotel equals 125,000 m3
- The outer walls of the hotel are concrete
Topics discussed
- Potential of using some of the solid waste to produce alternative energy
- Some trials were carried out to treat greywater and reuse it for toilet flushing but there is a problem with regulation
- There is currently no use of the water condensed in the cooling systems
- There is probably opportunity to increase efficiency of various mechanical systems and a meeting will be carries out between Joseph and reps of Smart Sense
- The hotel only works with proved technologies and normally do not investigate investments in new systems but rather on a different business model
- Every 5 years hotels are required by law to conduct energy consumption survey.
Second group –Dan Hotel representative – Chief engineer:
The main topic we discussed was the issue of governmental regulation on water and energy for the hotel sector. The issue on the strict role of the ministry of health on water treatment was discussed as a problem for the hotels who want to adapt programs that include greywater reuse.
The use of greywater was specifically raised by the Dan hotels as something they are interested in pursuing. Another issue that was raised was the opportunity for Israeli companies to make connections to the hotel sector in the EU
Third Group – The Abrahams' Hostels Group:
The co-owner of Abrahams' hotels was the hotel representative in the group. Abrahams' hotels are a series of SME hotels and therefore are most appropriate to GREENinMEDproject. They will be interested in taking part in subsequent phases of the project. All their hotels are located within urbane area and one important consequence of this fact is that they have limited capabilities for reuse of water for gardening. This problem may be the same in other towns of Israel, France and Spain. The discussion focused on the possibilities to assist these hotels to improve their energy conservation as well as water saving methods.
Technology providers included some graduate student from TAU, an energy efficiency upgrading company and some consulting companies.
Before the closing words, every group reported to the whole participants about the topics of the group discussion and the possible steps to be taken in order to make a progress.
The closing words included an invitation for the Israeli technology providers to participate in next steps of GREENinMED project and if possible, to come to France in April 22-23 for the next workshop there.
