Atlantis Bahamas Resort, Conceptual Energy Design Plan

Customer Challenge
The Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas is a full service hotel, casino, convention facility, and water park. It occupies over 500 acres of land, boasting the world’s largest open air marine environment, and housing almost 10,000 visitors at any given time. With such a wide assortment of around the clock service offerings, the resort’s utility bills are equally unparalleled. With over $85M USD in electricity bills per year, the resort’s owners were willing to explore any possible options to reduce operating costs, particularly if a shift to renewable energy could be incorporated.

Filament Energy’s Solution
Identifying energy saving measures in a facility that has been built in four stages over the past 50 years is not a trivial task. In order to save energy we believed that we must first understand where energy is being used. Cooling plants, accommodation lighting, common space uses, including a world class casino, back of house kitchen and housekeeping uses, and marine and water park loads were identified as the major contributors to electrical consumption, once dozens of metering points had been analyzed.
With much of the resort’s cooling loads driven by a year-round, warm, humid climate, mitigating air conditioning costs was a priority. Air conditioning takes almost 40% of the resort’s demand for power. LED lighting retrofits were investigated, particularly for common areas of the resort that are lit 24 hours a day. An on-site bioreactor also was proposed in order to convert the nearly 10 tons of inedible organic waste generated at the resort each day into useable electricity.
As a final step, a large solar PV array able to withstand hurricane force winds was proposed for the purpose of mitigating the amount of power purchased from the grid. With grid power produced in diesel power plants, we determined that solar panels were also an economical solution for reducing the environmental impact the resort has by reducing thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
Filament Energy’s solution provided cost effective solutions that met the client’s goals of operating cost reduction, in addition to providing an environmental benefit. Our focus on the social, financial, and environmental bottom line is evident in all of our work.