NEW YORK—After a year of testing ei3 Corp.’s energy monitoring and reporting system at the New York Hilton, the hotel chain is now ready to take the next step and install the software in its top properties. “Our relationship with ei3 began about a year ago,” said Edwin Figueroa, corporate director of engineering operations at Hilton Hotels Corp. “They were recommended by one of the senior vice presidents of our company,” he said. “Hilton was looking for sources to provide energy monitoring and reporting in all of their major properties,” added James L. Rooney, vp, sales at ei3. “In turn, Hilton was going to adapt the chosen system for their smaller properties as well to allow them to better track their energy consumption in order to realize real savings.” Eventually, ei3 installed its system at the New York Hilton while a competitive system was put in place at the company’s Waldorf=Astoria property. Following a trial period, Hilton opted for the ei3 system. “The real difference between the two programs was that our system integrates directly into the hotel’s system and allows for reporting in real time,” said Rooney. “Specifically, most systems link into the hotel with their own system and the hotelier learns the new system to understand the results of the reports generated, but we were able to integrate our system into the hotel’s system so Hilton could get the reporting function they wanted and still work within their existing system,” Rooney said. “We don’t go to a customer and tell them that they have to use our system our way, rather we customize our system around the needs of the client,” he said. Prior to aligning with ei3, Hilton used a system where its best practices software captured different data from different sources. From that point the information was confirmed for accuracy and transferred to a centralized system at Hilton. Now, the ei3 software houses the best practices software as well as the property’s charting, fact checking and distribution practices in one central location. Instead of requiring different staff members to coordinate and transfer each piece of data to the central unit, ei3’s software does the work for them. “The product gives us real-time data capturing abilities in monitoring all of our energy consumption,” said Figueroa. “Based on this real-time reporting, our hope is that we’ll be able to make operational changes so that we can realize some significant savings. “The new system is set up via a series of sensors that are connected to our meters,” Figueroa said. Installation took three months and Hilton is satisfied with the results of the trial run. “We’ve been testing it for a year at the New York Hilton and right now we’re asking our hotels of 1,000 rooms or more to install the system so we can get a better idea of exactly how beneficial it will be for us in the long run,” said Figueroa. “We’ve put out a memo to hotels like the Waldorf=Astoria, Hilton New Orleans Riverside and our other top hotels to install and use the system for a year to see the savings before we make it a brand standard. In the end, we believe the results will be promising.”
