ANALYSIS OF THE ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN THE HOTEL SECTOR AND FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR THE INSTALLATION OF SOFC-BASED COGENERATION SYSTEMS

This master thesis is part of the ComSos European project that aims to demonstrate the market potential of mid-sized fuel cells. In this work, only Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) will be considered. A SOFC is an open electrochemical device able to produce electrical energy, and thermal energy as a byproduct, working at high temperatures and commonly using methane or hydrogen as fuels. The analysis of the energy consumption in the hotel industry will be performed in order to understand if the medium-high standard hotels represent a possible market for SOFCs development. A typical upmarket hotel needs a very high amount of energy but at the same time, it possesses a remarkable potential to reduce its consumption. Due to the fact that sustainability is a worldwide current topic, international hotel companies are becoming increasingly interested in making their hotels more and more sustainable, and, as a consequence, understanding whether the SOFC systems can help this process is an important issue. The analysis will be done considering the annual electrical and thermal consumption for the medium-high standard hotels in different areas of the world. They will be specifically identified for 3,4 and 5 stars hotels in different continents, and a comparison between seasonal and annual hotels and between 3 stars and 4-5 stars ones will be performed. Also, a survey on the Italian hotel industry was conducted to understand its energy consumption. Considering the electrical consumption, in Europe hotels need between 99.7 and 168.9 kWh/m^2 , in Asia between 134.1 and 388.8 kWh/m^2 , in the US between 185 and 363 kWh/m^2 . About the thermal use, In Europe hotels use between 85.7 and 212.2 kWh/m^2 , in Asia between 27.9 and 357.5 kWh/m^2 , in the US between 127 and 463kWh/m^2 . Therefore, a Matlab®- based model in order to obtain the hourly consumptions from the annual ones will be explained. In order to reach this goal, the places where hotels are located will be divided according to their climate zones: the Koppen-Geiger Climate Classification will be utilized. A further simulation will be performed to understand the difference between the energy needs of seasonal and annual hotels. Subsequently, these results will be used to perform a study for different hotels located in Italy, Portugal, Greece, and Taiwan to verify the feasibility of a SOFC based cogeneration system in these hotels. It has been found, that at the current prices, the cash flow analysis is always negative, but at the target price, the payback times in the best conditions result of 4.2 and 4.4 years for small and medium hotels in Italy, 9.3 and 8.7 years for medium and large hotels in Portugal, 7.6 and 7.1 years for small and medium hotels in Greece, and 7.4 years for large hotels in Taiwan.