The second seminar of the RESOR project focused on the tourism sector, especially hotel units given the growing economic importance of this sector in the archipelago and the construction of new units that should entail important high energy efficiency and renewable production characteristics in order to avoid carbon locking for the next few decades.
The event took place in the largest island in terms of population and size, São Miguel, with internet broadcast. Hotels were contacted about four weeks in advance followed by phone confirmation, which resulted in a very good attendance of fourteen people from the sector, representing the major hotel groups, for a total of ten units, representing approximately 2000 beds.
The event was scheduled together with a seminar on “Energy efficiency in the hotel sector” that lasted for approximately four hours, focusing on the different systems installed in hotels that consume energy and the effective solutions to curb consumption and increase the share of renewables. The best practices from RESOR proved very useful in the presentation and ensuing discussion.
In general, attendees were pleased with the presentation, referring that similar events should be repeated. Regarding the scope of RESOR, the attendees referred the technical challenges of finding the right personnel in the Azores, especially given its small-scale and archipelagic nature. Lack of information was also of widespread consensus especially regarding the availability of funding mechanisms.
In order to reinforce participation, the Azorean Directorate for Energy also announced the installation of 10 charging stations for electric vehicles following a competition on the analysis of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures and a pledge to their implementation.