Feasibility study on combined heat and power systems for hotels in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

In Europe the energy consumed for heating and cooling purposes by the hospitality sector is significant, estimated at around 8TWh. In island economies such as that of the Mediterranean Island of Malta, where Tourism is considered essential to the local economy, such an energy consumption is perhaps even more significant, and energy-efficient systems or the use of renewable energy are often listed as possible solutions to counter this. Based on this premise, the research contained in this paper presents an investigation on the technical and financial feasibility of using Combined Heat and Power and Combined Cooling, Heating and Power systems for the hospitality sector in Malta. Using a supply-demand design methodology, the research made use of the software package RETScreen, to model the electrical and thermal demand of a number of hotels ranging from 3 to 5-star hotels. Based on these modelled hotels, different scenarios were simulated to analyse the technical and financial implications of installing a CHP in these modelled hotels. A number of variables, including thermal size matching, presence of financial grants, electricity tariffs, feed-in tariffs, and fuel prices were tested out for a total of 144 scenarios. Results showed that the variables having the highest impact were those of a financial nature. Specifically, the study showed that the 4-star hotels considered were the entities which would benefit the most from having such systems installed.