A real-time management system for the indoor environmental quality and energy efficiency in a hotel guestroom

With the concept of green hotel, the hotel industry has started to consider a sustainable design and operation to obtain more competitiveness. It is needed to implement a convenient way to recognize a real-time situation about the indoor environmental quality (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, CO2, TVOCs, PM2.5, etc.) and the relevant energy efficiency in a hotel guestroom. This study aimed to develop a scalable integrated platform for providing real-time monitoring, alert notification, and analytics so as to satisfy the level of the occupants' comfort and satisfaction. Facility managers could gain insight from the real-time hierarchical and historical information and take actions at a point of time. The novel approach could create a comfortable and healthy environment for the occupants in a hotel guestroom while realizing the energy efficiency in real time. The proposed platform was validated with three guestrooms in a hotel, and the scalability of the system was fully confirmed. In the future studies, it is expected to deploy the proposed platform to a larger physical entity of the hotel, providing flexibility and expandability in accordance with the strategic facility planning of the hotel. Furthermore, it is planned to develop various kinds of occupant-centered services in a hotel guestroom level.