Maintworld Magazine 1/2023
- maintenance & asset management
- maintenance & asset management
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CASE STUDY<br />
Heating and energy solutions are the<br />
hot topic of the day. We are living in a<br />
time of transition and every player in<br />
society is concerned about some aspect<br />
of energy - price, availability, low carbon.<br />
Our university's Hybrid Systems and<br />
Energy Efficiency study module has<br />
never been more topical. This article<br />
presents an implementation approach<br />
that combines the learning needs of<br />
students, the university's objectives<br />
for business cooperation and regional<br />
effectiveness, and the individual<br />
company's objectives for cost-effective<br />
development of its own activities.<br />
The case is Hotel Waltikka, a private family business<br />
built in 1988 in Valkeakoski, Finland. The<br />
hotel has 83 rooms. The volume is 5600 square<br />
metres, or 22 000 cubic metres. The meeting<br />
rooms and restaurant are both about 800 square<br />
metres. And being Finland, the number of saunas is important:<br />
there are 4 of them.<br />
The current owners of the hotel, Piia and Tomi Kuparinen,<br />
bought the hotel in 2019. At this point, any reader familiar<br />
with the tourism industry will sigh in their minds, knowing<br />
what happened the year after they bought the hotel. No one<br />
however, had a crystal ball to predict the coming Covid-19<br />
pandemic or the energy crisis that would soon erupt – crises<br />
that decisively changed the calculations made on the hotel's<br />
profitability.<br />
CEO of the hotel, Tomi Kuparinen, set out to revamp<br />
the hotel by developing both the operational concept and<br />
the physical building. Several energy-saving upgrades were<br />
made: motion sensors, LED lighting, ventilation upgrades,<br />
an automation control system for heating pressure, watersaving<br />
showers, tendering for electricity contracts, etc. The<br />
solar panels alone have already generated 100 MWh per year.<br />
This year's upgrades include an air-to-water heat pump, supplemented<br />
by district heating.<br />
HELP FROM UNIVERSITY COOPERATION<br />
Crises have followed one another, and entrepreneurs in<br />
Finland and elsewhere have sought new solutions to survive.<br />
The CEO Kuparinen started working with our university.<br />
HAMK is a multidisciplinary higher education institution<br />
offering bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering. Research<br />
in this field is carried out in the HAMK Tech research<br />
unit, where one of the research areas is energy efficiency<br />
research. The link between education and working life is<br />
ensured through projects, internships and theses in cooperation<br />
with companies. Teaching is delivered in eight-week<br />
(15 cr) modules.<br />
42 maintworld 1/<strong>2023</strong>