MONROVIA, CA—Storage solutions are everywhere. From a USB thumb drive, to the trunk of you car, to your bedroom closet—they come in all shapes and sizes.
Storage plays a big role in the hospitality industry as well. The guestroom alone has a number of spaces to store items, including closets, chests of drawers, night tables and in-room safes.
Energy storage may not be a physical entity, but it is something that is just as important to hotel operations as those guestroom options. By storing energy, properties can reduce costs, manage consumption and mitigate the risk of interruption from power failures.
The easiest way for hotels to store energy for future use is to install an energy storage system (ESS). Since 2013, CODA Energy, based here, has been manufacturing them for restaurants, manufacturing facilities, religious organizations and other businesses with high electricity demands from operating machinery and profiles that rely heavily on on-peak energy usage. It recently made its foray in the hospitality industry by installing its CODA Core 40kWh/30kWh ESS at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, CA.
“While many other companies in the energy storage space are fairly new, CODA Energy emerged as a leader in commercial and industrial ESS in 2013 with 15-plus years of battery technology and management expertise,” said CEO Paul Detering. “Our core engineering team, technology and IP date back to 2001 when the company was known as EnergyCS. With a deep history in designing and installing storage products, we became CODA Energy in 2013 and began to offer commercial and industrial energy storage products that can easily be customized based on each customer’s needs depending on size, space and application.”
CODA Energy’s signature product is the aforementioned CODA Core 40kWh/30kWh ESS, which Detering called “one of the most trusted, and reliable energy storage systems available on the market. It has been certified by a trusted third-party, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), which provides our customers with a guarantee of safety, reliability and performance. The UL-listed CODA Core Tower is a fully functional ESS, consisting of both hardware and software, and works like an appliance out of the box.
“The Tower combines sophisticated battery cells for storage, comprehensive battery and temperature management systems, and an intelligent operating system tailored to each customer’s specific application, providing real-time energy insight enabling businesses to better analyze and understand their energy usage,” he continued. “Like an energy savings account, the CODA Core system pulls energy from the utility grid when it is cheap or ‘off-peak,’ and stores it in the batteries for use by the building when energy is expensive or ‘on-peak.’ CODA’s proprietary energy storage algorithms optimize the building’s source of energy throughout the day in order to minimize demand charges and help businesses save money on their electric bills.”
Detering noted that, for the hospitality industry, as well as other commercial establishments, the CODA Core ESS will not only cut energy costs, but it will also provide a solution when the power goes down.
“The CODA Core provides control over what hotels spend on electricity by controlling peak demand (kW) usage, which can constitute up to 50% of the cost of a hotel’s electric bill each month in markets such as California and New York,” he said. “Additionally, CODA’s ESS are capable of protecting buildings from operational disruptions by leveraging stored electricity during power outages and disasters to protect the hotel against loss of economic productivity and mitigating safety issues.”
The ESS also fit in with the increased implementation of sustainability programs at properties throughout the world. “The CODA Core can help hotels deliver on their mission to operate more sustainably and offer more ‘green’ benefits to their customers,” Detering said. “For hotels using on-site renewable energy from solar panels, for example, the CODA Core can store clean energy when it’s generated for use when it’s needed. And, as electric vehicles (EV) continue to grow in popularity and hotels develop on-site EV charging infrastructure for guests, ESS can offset increased energy costs associated with EV charging stations.”
According to the CEO, CODA Energy has installed more than 50 small and large-scale ESS since 2014, and has hundred more in the pipeline. The company’s first hotel client, the Sunset Marquis—a property known for its connection to the rock ’n’ roll industry—installed the CODA Core only a couple of months ago.
“The Sunset Marquis took advantage of our no-upfront-cost offer, where it pays nothing out of pocket, receives 100% of the savings in year one and splits the savings from the CODA system for the remainder of our 10-year agreement,” said Detering. “CODA provided the funding for the system, using the Self-Generation Incentive Program [SGIP], handled all project management including permitting and interconnection, installed the system at the hotel and completed the commissioning. We expect the system to save the Sunset Marquis approximately 20% on its monthly electric bill.”
The full-service hotel, set just off the famed Sunset Strip, features 154 suites and villas, a restaurant, spa and a recording studio where dozens of Grammy Award-winning records have been produced. Needless to say, the property uses plenty of electricity, and it would be a nightmare for management, guests and record producers if there was a power failure.
“Storage is an essential piece of any energy management plan, as efficiency measures and renewables only solve part of the puzzle,” said Christopher Cope, VP of sales & marketing for the Sunset Marquis. “CODA Energy’s storage products complement and enhance facility energy upgrades that are common, and long needed, in the hospitality industry. Aside from saving money on electric bills, the CODA system also provides real-time energy data, enabling facilities to identify and make operational changes in real-time.”
Hotels in California interested in installing CODA Core can take advantage of SGIP, which, according to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), provides incentives to support existing, new and emerging distributed energy resources by giving rebates for qualifying distributed energy systems installed on the customer’s side of the utility meter.
“Hotels located in California can get the CODA Core for virtually no upfront cost through SGIP, for which we handle all the paperwork,” said Detering. “Our turnkey commercial and industrial energy storage product comes with a 10-year warranty, all hardware and software, full installation, permitting, interconnection and project costs built in and with a shared-savings financing model.” HB