More than 1,100 Motel 6 and Studio 6 properties across North America use Ecova’s energy dashboard to monitor and manage energy usage. G6 Hospitality is the management company that operates the Motel 6 and Studio 6 properties.
In a case study prepared by Ecova, Renee Swoger, director of capital administration and sustainability at G6 Hospitality, said, “We wanted to provide each of our properties with a usage tracking tool to drive performance improvement. While this sounds simple enough, making site-to-site comparisons in the geographically distributed hospitality business is complicated. Variables such as weather and occupancy have a profound impact on day-to-day energy consumption from one property to the next.”
Ecova was already helping G6 with the auditing and payment of utility expenses, as well as budget and financial management. The information housed in the Ecova platform proved foundational.
“Beyond the monthly utility costs hitting their budget, our property managers had no visibility into actual cost drivers or consumption for their locations,” said Swoger. G6 Hospitality rolled out its energy dashboard to each property to provide visibility into monthly site-level consumption performance.
The dashboard presents performance in the form of simple gauges that let managers know whether they’re in the red (over) or green (under) for each utility. Although the baseline methodology for the dashboard is sophisticated, taking historical consumption, occupancy, and heating degree/cooling degree days into account, for property managers and staff, it results in a very simple, standardized report on energy consumption.
With 10,000 employees ranging from property managers to housekeeping staff, the management of energy consumption? at G6 must be embraced at all levels.
“G6 Hospitality has invested a tremendous amount of time training team members on how their individual actions or inactions impact energy consumption, and it is the collective effort across all team members that has resulted in the greatest impact on energy performance,” said Rick Clough, director of resource analytics at Ecova.
The dashboard is also equipped with a troubleshooting application. In the event a site is over-consuming compared to baseline expectations, the property manager or maintenance supervisor is equipped with a checklist of utility-specific potential problem areas to investigate in an effort to mitigate the problem.