The winning team members are Acyuta Hafizh N. P. Jr. (13020094), Alicia Faustina (14520053), Malik Akbar H. Rafsanjani (13520105), and Abdurrahman Sudais Al Ghifari (14520024).

The Schneider Go Green 2023 Hackathon centered around the theme of “Circularity and Energy Efficiency for Buildings,” focusing on office complexes and hotels. Participants faced the challenge of designing innovative solutions for related issues within a six-hour timeframe. Solutions had to meet specific criteria, including energy efficiency, integration of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system and the Internet of Things (IoT), and consideration of customer satisfaction.

The Bentala Team chose to integrate the waste-to-energy system and IoT in the hospitality sector. They recognized the scarcity of IoT system implementation, circularity, and energy efficiency in hotels compared to offices. Additionally, with the surge in tourism post-pandemic, hotel waste available for the waste-to-energy system increased significantly.

“In our problem statement, we were given two choices, offices or hotels. We chose the hotel as tourism is on a sudden increase post-pandemic, and there is not much intervention revolving around sustainability in the hospitality sector,” explained Malik Akbar H. Rafsanjani.

The Bentala Team designed a complex system that integrates the waste-to-energy system with the IoT system. Waste from hotel guests, such as human feces, leftover foods, and wastewater, is transformed into five different products: electricity, chilled air, CO2 capture, fertilizer, and clean water through a circularity-based work system.

The waste-to-energy system is integrated with IoT, tracking the system’s functioning through two types of dashboards: the hotel management dashboard and the hotel guest dashboard. The hotel management dashboard allows the hotel to record the energy produced by the system from various types of waste. Meanwhile, the guest dashboard tracks the user’s energy consumption. If hotel guests wish to save energy, the system provides incentives in the form of membership points, exchangeable for various services in the hotel, such as food vouchers, spa vouchers, discounts, and more.

“What makes this (system) innovative is the integration aspect, which we emphasized. All of the components and methods existed previously but often separately. Therefore, our idea is how to combine all of the operations into a mutually supportive system,” explained Alicia Faustina.

The integrated system involves two main stakeholders in the hospitality sector, designed to provide benefits for both active participants. Hotel management gains profits through cost and energy consumption savings of up to 19 percent, while hotel guests earn benefits for their efforts to reduce energy use. The Bentala Team believes this design effectively encourages both parties to actively participate in sustainable actions based on their own interests.

Abdurrahman Sudais Al Ghifari added that sustainability can only be achieved if each party is committed to the cause. “In the hospitality industry context, at a minimum, it would be from the side of the hotel management and the guests. If the two stakeholders have the same commitment towards the issue of sustainability, this could redirect the hospitality industry onto a more sustainable path in the future.

”Before finalizing the system design, the Bentala Team actively sought assistance and mentoring from various parties, including professors, Schneider Electric Indonesia representatives, and the previous year’s winner. They also learned from case studies abroad and previous projects, complementing their classroom knowledge. With a diverse set of fields of knowledge, they discovered that collaboration, teamwork, and complementing each other are key to success.

Reporter: Hanifa Juliana (Urban and Regional Planning, 2020)

Editor: M. Naufal Hafizh

Translator: Firzana Aisya (Bioengineering, 2021)