Sign of the times: Southgate hotel goes solar

The Comfort Suites hotel in Southgate is being held up as an example of how alternative energy can improve the bottom line.

Raj Patel, owner of the 78-room hotel on Northline Road at I-75, says after "going line by line through the budget and running out of places to make cuts," he looked for ways to cut energy costs. Patel, who has an engineering degree and whose father is a thermal dynamics engineer, researched solar electric, wind, and solar thermal forms of power and opted for the last.

"We've seen upwards of a savings of 50 percent on water usage…Before we were just dumping gallons of water down the drain….And there's been a 70-75 percent reduction in our natural gas bill. We are basically paying what the owner of a large home would pay, about $500 a month," says Patel, who believes so wholeheartedly in this form of energy that he joined Starpak Group, an Ann Arbor company that showed Patel how he cut his energy usage at the hotel.

Patel's hotel, which has won the Greening Downriver Award from the Southern Wayne County Regional Chamber, will be the site of the chamber's After Business, Ours event on April 28. Dozens of Wayne County-area businesses are expected to attend and learn from Patel about how his energy costs have been cut.

Patel will show the guests the hotel's two-part solar-powered system.

Powered basically by solar power arrays and propylene glycol, one part of the solar thermal system warms all water used in the hotel. The second, a waste recovery system, dehumidifies the pool and captures the vast quantities of heat and water usually released during that process. The system recirculates it and reuses the heat that would normally be sent outdoors and the water that would go down the drain. The systems work all year long, Patel says, whether cold or warm outside.

Solar thermal power is a different and less common approach than solar, or photovoltaic, panels, which generate electric power, often only a small portion of the electricity needed.

Patel says while he could not afford solar electric, the solar thermal system was doable. In 16 months, he says, he's recouped his $35,000 investment.

"The customers notice no difference whatsoever," he says.

Source: Rajel Patel, owner Comfort Suites, Southgate
Writer: Kim North Shine