Energy use in sharm el-sheikh resort in EGYPT

Abstract

The world energy demand is projected to grow dramatically over the coming decades and global warming is expected to intensify in the business as usual scenario. Both residential and commercial buildings play a major role in the global energy consumption which has been steadily increasing, reaching the levels of industrial and transportation sectors. This has raised concerns over supply and depletion of energy resources and its resulting environmental impacts considering that oil is the world's vital source of energy and will remain so for many years to come. Although there are no collective data available on the global energy consumption in the hotel sector, yet several studies have indicated that hotel units are among the largest energy consumers in the building sector. A literature review indentifi es the lack of published data on energy use in hotels in Egypt. The main aim of this work is to evaluate the energy consumption of resorts as a fi rst step toward establishing a database for resorts key performance indicators in Egypt. This paper, accordingly, investigates the energy performance of fi ve star resorts in the city of Sharm El-Sheikh located on the Red Sea coast in Egypt. This investigation is carried out as part of a study aimed at evaluating the prospects of solar resorts and environmental sustainability in Egypt. The results of the energy audit indicate a common trend of consumption at resorts in Sharm El-Sheikh which is comparable with consumption values of some other hotels in different parts of the world. However, there is potential for introducing energy effi ciency measures in resorts and achieving lower consumption levels. © 2012 WIT Press, www.witpress.com.