Feb. 1, 2008 -- Pacific Gas & Electric has extended its program to provide California hotel owners with free, energy-saving retrofits designed to eliminate wasteful use of air conditioning and heating. The Cool Control Plus program, launched in 2006, has already met its initial target to save 12-million-kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually, one year ahead of schedule.

PG&E has signed a new $4.5 million contract with Honeywell to continue offering the program through 2008. Honeywell expects to save an additional 11 million kWh of electricity and retrofit approximately 12,000 hotel and motel rooms with the extension.

Under Cool Control Plus, Honeywell works with participating hotels and motels to install occupancy sensors in each room to reduce the use of air conditioning and heating equipment when the rooms are not occupied. PG&E estimates that these measures cut energy use by an average of 1,100 kilowatt-hours per room, saving hotel owners up to $140 per room.

Additional hardware retrofits include replacing outdated interior and exterior lighting fixtures with high-efficiency lamps and installing energy-saving technology on cold-drink vending machines to curb the energy consumption of refrigeration equipment. All installation and hardware costs are free of charge to lodging operators.

"Cool Control Plus makes both fiscal and environmental sense, which is why the response from lodging owners has been so remarkable," says Kent Anson, vice president of global energy for Honeywell Building Solutions. "We are excited to raise the initial target and bring this free program to many more hotels and motels this year."