CLEVELAND, OHIO—Hasek Communications, the Cleveland, Ohio-based publisher of Green Lodging News, welcomes Bulbs.com as a Founding Sponsor. The company offers a wide selection of energy-efficient replacement bulbs, ballasts, fixtures and can consult on almost any lighting project. With its prepaid recycling containers, Bulbs.com also can help with bulb recycling programs. The company has certificates of proper recycling and disposal available and its prepaid containers follow EPA guidelines and keep businesses compliant. Bulbs.com first entered the lighting market in 1999. The company is now one of the largest Philips Lighting distributors, servicing more than 91,000 businesses operating 250,000 business locations. Bulbs.com’s...

HEALDSBURG, CALIF.—The July 4 holiday weekend turned out to be a good time to open for the new water-themed h2hotel in California’s Northern Sonoma Wine Country. The four-story, 36-room hotel sold out—a good sign for the owners of the $19 million property. A collaboration among David Baker + Partners, the architect responsible for the AIA design award-winning Hotel Healdsburg, Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, and Marie Fisher and Jen Gadiel Interior Design, h2hotel is primed to earn a  LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Unique in many ways, h2hotel is located within 10 miles of 100 wineries and...

ORLANDO—INNCOM International and SAFLOK recently displayed their joint collaboration of a radio-frequency (RF) interface for energy management at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference (HITEC) that provides a cost-effective EMS for hotels by allowing the electronic door lock and thermostat to communicate wirelessly. The joint integration, introduced first in November 2009, was quickly adopted across the industry due to its ability to allow hotels to use the door lock to communicate via RF to the thermostat. Every time the door is opened, it communicates to the thermostat and enables energy management algorithms to take effect and thus reduce...

CLEVELAND, OHIO—Green Lodging News has just added a new case study to its website. The case study focuses on the Fontainebleau Miami Beach and its installation of dehumidification and HVAC control technology from Dectron Internationale, Roswell, Ga. The engineering firm for the project was TLC Engineering for Architecture (TLC), Fort Myers, Fla. Four DRY-O-TRON model DA-5 dehumidifiers manufactured by Dectron were installed in four aquatic areas: the men’s spa, the women’s spa, the rain shower/co-ed pool, and wet treatment area. The result of the investment for the Fontainebleau Miami Beach: $16,000 in annual energy savings.To read the complete case...

RYE BROOK, N.Y.—Doral Arrowwood, located in Westchester, N.Y., announced that it has partnered with American DG Energy of Waltham, Mass. American DG will serve as the hotel’s clean energy supplier. As part of this initiative, Doral Arrowwood will soon receive a significant portion of its energy from a 375 kW combined heat and power (CHP) system. Using energy produced by the CHP system, Doral Arrowwood will reduce its carbon emissions by up to 1,800 tons per year or 43 percent. The partnership is the latest addition to Doral Arrowwood’s green initiatives, which include measures to reduce energy usage, increase...

BOSTON—Spend some time chatting with Brian Gorski, director of engineering at the 498-room Hyatt Regency Boston and you will quickly understand how the all-electric hotel has been able to slice its annual power consumption by a whopping 42 percent—from 12.3 million kilowatt hours of usage per year to 7.1 million. The drop in energy consumption did not happen in just one year but over a time period of approximately 10 to 12 years when approximately $3 million was spent on improvements in infrastructure, equipment and other systems to improve energy efficiency. NStar, the Massachusetts-based, investor-owned electric and gas utility,...

ORLANDO, FLA.—Control4, a leader in IP-based home and hospitality control systems, announced that the Control4 platform is being used to enhance the guest experience at the luxurious Elbow Beach Resort in Bermuda. Each of the resort’s 98 guestrooms and suites, situated in secluded cottages scattered across 50 acres of gardens, is now equipped with a Control4 system. Guests use a single Control4 remote and simple, on-screen interface to control the television, Blu-ray player and satellite TV receiver. The hotel can upgrade the ZigBee-based wireless Control4 system with additional capabilities, such as lighting control and energy management, without complex rewiring...

TOLLAND, CONN.—Reflect and Glow Products has introduced Find a Light and GloPlate. The purpose of the products is to help people find their light switch plates in total darkness without the use of electricity. Their simple installation is one of the benefits and existing wall plate screws make it easy to attach each product to the wall plate in seconds. The products can be attached to both standard toggle wall plates and the more modern plates such as the Rocker Plate. The glowing fields of Find A Light guarantee that the product will glow all night when exposed to daylight...

SANTA CLARA, CALIF.—WattStopper has developed PlugCalc as a key component in its Energy Calculator Tool Kit. The tool is available online or as a free downloadable iPad app. PlugCalc enables users to calculate energy savings opportunities as well as return on investment by automatically controlling plugged in office equipment and other plug loads. These loads represent a growing source of electrical consumption in commercial applications, accounting for as much as 20 percent of total energy use in office buildings (data from the Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Building End-Use Consumption Survey). Built on the same user-friendly model as the...

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—Phoebus Energy, developer of the Hybrid Water Heating System, launches its expansion into the hotel industry with successful installations at Hagoshrim and Inbal Hotels in Israel. Hotels and resorts consume large amounts of fossil fuel to heat water for showers, space heating and swimming pools. Fossil fuel costs represent a significant percentage of the total energy expenses at hotels and are extremely volatile. The Hybrid Water Heating System packages modern heat pump technology with intelligent Web-based monitoring and control software. The Phoebus Energy solution reduces fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions while significantly reducing energy costs at hotel facilities. “The...