Taj Coromandel, Chennai has a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), ISO 14000 and ISO 2200 certificates.
The hotel is also certified by Green Globe, an international benchmarking agency which compares the consumption and waste handling process of the hotel with other international hotels.
The property is already at the bronze level, and is in the process of being certified to the silver level.
“As a continuous improvement process we carry out energy audit every three years, and implement the recommendations from the experts”, said Shankareswaran Jayaraj, chief engineer, Taj Coromandel.
The hotel is among the first in India to participate in the eeBuildings and Strategic Programme Fund (SPF) Low Carbon High Growth Programme of the British High Commission, focussing on energy and cost savings through low-cost, no-cost operational and retrofit measures.
“We have focused on HVAC systems by installing variable-frequency drives (VFDs) for all high capacity air handling units (AHUs) and cooling towers. We have also converted the V-belt into flat belt drives, and installed automatic power factor correction (APFC) panels to improve the power factor,” he said.
The hotel has installed chillers with heat recovery systems, to produce hot water from the heat rejected in the condenser before going to the cooling tower. This has reduced the fuel (furnace oil) consumption in the boiler by 10-12% for generation of hot water.
“Building management systems installed in the hotel, ensure an optimum usage of air conditioning in the public areas by monitoring and scheduling of various AHUs,” he concluded.
The hotel has installed more than 40 energy meters which are integrated and monitored through software, to control the consumption in various sections of the hotel.
The hotel had invested about Rs30 lakhs and were able to recover the same within 18 months.
