Article created for the digital issue of the NATSO Foundation’s magazine
Businesses that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, have to keep the lights on around the clock and maintain a comfortable temperature for customers, which means you’re constantly pulling energy from the grid.
When embarking on a new travel center build, you should tap into energy-saving solutions that can reduce your energy use and cut costs.
Energy-saving solutions for travel centers include:
Energy-Efficient Lighting: Lighting is one of the easiest ways to cut costs and save energy. LED lighting is a good choice for canopies at the fuel island, but it may not be the best choice inside the store.
You should consider the mood you’re trying to create, which may mean you use different lighting levels within the store. For example, electronics and groceries could have different light levels.
Natural Light: In new construction, you can take advantage of natural light by installing solar tubes or skylights.
Landscaping: Trees can provide natural cooling, dropping temperatures three to six degrees in warm climates and cutting wind speeds by 50% in colder climates.
Energy Management Systems: The systems are basically smart boxes that handles lighting, refrigeration, HVAC, etc., and cycle certain things during certain hours. If you’re in a peak time, that isn’t when you want to be doing
all of your ice production in the back room. You want to go in the middle of the night when it is off-peak. When you have a refrigeration system, whether for a cooler or HVAC, is the fan going from 0 to 60, or is it a low ramp where the fan comes on slowly or works up to the peak point, so you don’t have a surge? You’re paying money off the peak and not where it ends up.
Low-Flow Fixtures: Cutting down on the amount of water by installing low-flow toilets or reclaiming water in a car wash, for example, will increase sustainability and also reduce water costs.
Closed Coolers: Some stores are shifting away from open doors coolers. In some areas, grocery stores are even mandated to go to closed doors or a screen that holds the temperature and is more efficient.
The NATSO Foundation has several more resources for energy-saving solutions. Check out:
- Sustainability Ideas for Inside Your Travel Center (podcast)
- Small, Meaningful Actions Help Operators Increase Efficiency and Sustainability
- Solar Panels Can Help Travel Center Operators Cut Energy Costs
- Resources, Tools and Opportunities in Energy Efficiency
Are you embarking on a new travel center build?
A 2023 poll from NATSO members found that 63 percent are ‘likely’ to invest in a rebuild or remodel during the next 12 to 18 months. To help NATSO member travel center operators develop new locations, the NATSO Foundation has articles like this one, created a toolkit and offered a workshop at NATSO Connect. The NATSO Foundation’s Travel Center and Truck Stop New Build Toolkit was created to help travel center operators develop new locations. Access the NATSO Foundation’s Travel Center and Truck Stop New Build Toolkit here.
The toolkit was made possible with support from Zippin.
// This article was created for Stop Watch magazine, the magazine of the NATSO Foundation. The NATSO Foundation is the research, education and public outreach subsidiary of NATSO, Inc. The NATSO Foundation provides programs and products to strengthen travel plazas’ ability to meet the traveling public's needs through improved operational performance and business planning. Visit www.natsofoundation.org for more information. (Donate to the NATSO Foundation here.)
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