Industry
Commercial electricity for hotels and hospitality
Round-the-clock base load with strong seasonal and occupancy-driven variation.
Hotels and hospitality typically run a moderate to high load factor, which means supply price and contract timing carry most of the controllable cost. Round-the-clock base load with strong seasonal and occupancy-driven variation.
Two peaks — morning showers and evening occupancy — on a high base that never drops, because rooms and common areas run around the clock.
Illustrative shape, not measured data. It shows the pattern this kind of operation tends to follow, which is why its bill behaves the way it does. Your real profile comes from your own interval data, and it is the only version that can produce a number.
What the federal building survey says
In 2018 the U.S. Energy Information Administration surveyed 6,436 commercial buildings and recorded the electricity each used. These are the surveyed buildings that match hotels and hospitality, in kWh per square foot per year. Each is a whole building classed by what fills the most of it, so a single tenant space inside a larger building can use more or less.
Hotel, motel or inn
14.1kWh per sq ft a year, median
The middle half of surveyed buildings used 8.9 to 20.8. Nearly all fell between 4.8 and 32.4.
A typical one is 12,000 sq ft. At the median that is about 168,960 kWh a year, roughly $2,100 a month at the US average commercial price.
304 surveyed buildings Solid
Estimate your buildingSurvey year 2018, so this is the usage pattern, not a forecast. Prices here are today's: the US average commercial price for the 12 months to the latest EIA month. The cost estimator does the same for your own floor area and state.
What drives the load
- Guest room HVAC
- Laundry
- Kitchen and food service
- Pool and amenity systems
- Common area lighting and lifts
The trap this industry falls into
Occupancy-linked consumption makes year-on-year comparison misleading. A bill that rose ten percent against a year when occupancy rose fifteen percent is a cost improvement, and normalising for that is the difference between a useful review and a confused one.
What to actually do
- Normalise consumption per occupied room night before drawing any conclusion
- Review guest room HVAC setback on unoccupied rooms
- Check laundry scheduling against the demand window
- Evaluate pool heating and circulation controls
Which half of the bill to attack
A commercial bill splits into supply, which a competitive supplier can price where a competitive market exists, and delivery, demand, fixed charges and riders, which stay regulated whichever supplier you use. Load factor decides which half is worth your attention, and for hotels and hospitality the answer is usually clear.
At a moderate to high load factor, consumption is steady and there is comparatively little peak to attack. That pushes the controllable cost toward the supply side: the rate, the contract structure and above all the timing of the renewal. For an operation like this, a contract that expires unmanaged is usually the most expensive single event in the year.
That does not make the regulated half irrelevant — rate schedule fit and billing accuracy still apply — but it does mean the sequence is different. Get the contract calendar right first.
The mechanics behind this: load factor, demand charges and rate schedule fit.
What we need to give you a real answer
- 24 months of bills
- Occupied room nights by month
- Amenity inventory
- Laundry schedule — on site or outsourced
The item that most often turns a vague conversation into a specific finding is twelve months of peak kW. A single bill shows what you paid; twelve months of demand readings show the shape that caused it, and the shape is where the recoverable money is.
Send one recent bill. We compute the supply, delivery and demand split for your account and tell you which of the levers above is actually worth your time.