In order to reduce its carbon footprint, the historical Hotel Adlon Kempinski chose GE Lighting's retrofit LED lamps to replace its current inefficient halogen lighting in its 382 suites and guest rooms.

Our customer

Hotels such as the Waldorf Astoria in New York, the Ritz in London or the George V in Paris are symbols of luxury and tradition. For decades, these hotels have become landmarks of their respective Metropolises.

Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin is leading the league for Germany. The Adlon was first opened in 1907 and soon became "the" spot in Berlin and one of the leading hotels worldwide. Aside from Emperor Wilhelm II, Charlie Chaplin, Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller, GE founder and inventor of the incandescent light bulb Thomas Alva Edison has been one of the many famous guests of the Hotel's early days.

Destroyed after World War II, the Hotel was rebuilt in the 1990s and re-opened in 1997. It almost immediately regained its reputation as the leading hotel in Germany.

GE Lighting restored the indoor lighting system of Hotel Adlon Kempinski (photo courtesy: GE)

The expectation
 
The Hotel Adlon defined the objective to become one of the leading hotels also in terms of sustainability and environmental awareness. A specialized "Green Inspiration Team" is regularly investigating possibilities to reduce the Hotel's carbon footprint and environmental impact. In line with this initiative, Thorsten Kluge, the technical director of the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, was looking for a solution to replace the halogen lamps in the hotel's 382 suites and guest rooms with energy efficient LED lighting.

The Hotel Adlon Kempinski relied on its long-standing partner, the electronics retailer OBETA electro in order to find the best possible and most reliable solution delivering the desired energy savings as well as maintenance cost savings. "The Adlon had very clear expectations from the new lighting", says Oliver Voges, key account manager for major clients at OBETA electro. "Aside from high quality and reliability, the new lighting solution had to fit into the aesthetics of the hotel without compromising the look and original design characteristics. Therefore, we tested a variety of products for months and finally the hotel selected the product that best meets these requirements."

The solution

Mr. Thorsten Kluge selected a solution by GE Lighting, which satisfies the high quality requirements by the hotel and its guests. "We had two quality criteria that were of special importance to us," says Kluge. "On the one hand the new lamps had to convince us by offering superior lighting quality, perfectly supporting the Adlon's atmosphere. Furthermore, we were looking for a product that was compatible with the current wiring and transformer infrastructure in order to facilitate the replacement during high occupancy times and keep the costs at a feasible level. We found all this in GE Lighting's MR16 7W LED, which completely convinced us in all these specifications."

GE's MR16 7W Energy Smart LED lamp is fully dimmable and available as a 35W and 50W halogen equivalent in multiple colour temperatures and is suitable for track and recessed lighting.

GE Lighting's MR16 makes brighter the interior of Hotel Adlon Kempinski (photo courtesy: GE)

Results and benefits

A total of 7,000 GE LED replacement lamps have been installed throughout the Hotel Adlon Kempinski since the beginning of the year. They reduce energy consumption by 140,000 kWh per year. This is an energy saving of up to 80 per cent in comparison to the formerly used halogen lighting. Thus, the new LED Lamps help the hotel to reduce its carbon footprint. Furthermore, the GE MR16 7W LED lamps offer a long life of 25,000 operating hours, which is five times longer than the previously used lighting solution. All this ends up in substantial savings in maintenance costs for the Adlon. Due to these savings, the new installation will be refinanced within one year.

"We are proud that the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, a hotel with one of the highest standards in the industry, selected our products for their suites and guest rooms", says Frank Weiss, General Manager of GE Lighting Germany. "This underscores GE's longstanding commitment to offer high quality products. With several projects and references globally, GE Lighting is a trusted partner to hospitality customers all over the world."