You run the resort.We cut the energy bill by up to 75%.
Solar that stays at your site. Heat pumps that turn warm tropical air into hot water. Thermal batteries grown from Philippine coconut. One integrated Karnot solution for hot water, pool, kitchens, cold storage and air conditioning — and the power bill that has been keeping you up at night.
You already have heat pumps. They are failing four ways.
Most Philippine hotels installed R410A or R134a heat pumps in the 2014–2018 wave. Those units are now mid-phasedown, leaking faster in coastal salt air, silently losing 1–2% efficiency every year, and waiting weeks for spare parts. Europe is moving past F-gas refrigerants entirely under REACH; the same chemistry will be restricted here within the life of any unit you install today. This is what the next replacement decision actually looks like.
F-Gas Phasedown — Real Costs Today
R410A has a Global Warming Potential of 2,088 and is mid-phasedown under the Kigali Amendment. Wholesale R410A prices are up 3–5× since 2022 as supply tightens. Service-call recharge cost now dominates HVAC maintenance contracts. Karnot R290 has a GWP of 3 and no phasedown clock running — the natural refrigerant Europe is moving to.
Coastal Salt-Air Corrosion
Most Philippine luxury hotels sit within 5km of salt water. Aluminium fin pitting is typically visible inside 18–24 months; copper coil perforations follow inside 4–6 years; refrigerant leak frequency triples versus inland units. Karnot iSPA uses marine-grade titanium tube-in-shell exchangers as standard — designed to outlive the pool.
Silent COP Decay
Heat pumps lose 1–2% efficiency every year from compressor wear and slow refrigerant loss. By year 10, a unit specified at COP 4.0 is silently delivering 3.0–3.2 — a 25% increase in your kWh bill that nobody flagged. The aging is invisible until you measure it. Karnot units come with a documented COP curve.
Spare-Part Scarcity
The wave of low-cost imported heat pumps that shipped into Philippine hospitality in 2014–2018 came from vendors who have since consolidated, renamed, or left the export market entirely. Spare parts now require 8–12 week air-freight — and your hot water can't wait three months. Karnot maintains a Pangasinan parts depot.
Your hotel's biggest bills. One Karnot solution.
Each Karnot product replaces a different piece of legacy plant — and they are designed to work together. Solar generates the daytime electricity, the heat pump turns it into heating or cooling, the thermal battery banks it for night-time, and the hydronic loop delivers it where the property actually needs it. One design intent, sized to the property.
iHEAT R290
Hot water · rooms · laundry. 9.5–105 kW. COP 4.5+. Delivers 60–82°C — replaces LPG and diesel boilers.
iSPA
Pools & spa. 6.5–39 kW. COP 7.5. Marine titanium for saltwater. Heats and cools — perfect tropical pool year-round.
iCOOL
Kitchens & cold storage. CO₂ (R744) refrigeration. Replaces R404A walk-ins. GWP 1 — zero phasedown risk.
iMESH
Existing chiller retrofit. Adiabatic upgrade bolts onto your current plant. +15–25% COP day one — bridge investment.
iZONE
Hydronic fan coils for guest rooms. <30 dBA. ECM motors. PFAS-free. ModBus BMS — replaces PTAC, VTAC and refrigerant-loaded VRF.
iVOLT
Solar + LiFePO4 battery + heat pump bundles. 3 → 10 kW. Brownout-proofs the property during yellow/red grid alerts.
iSTOR
Phase-change thermal battery. 33–80 kWh. Bridges peak demand and power outages — 3× more compact than tanks.
Behind your meter. Sized to your load. Not to the net-metering cap.
Most hotels have been sold solar that covers only 20% of consumption. That is not a regulatory cap — it is what solar gives you without storage. The government's April 2026 circular lifted net metering to 1 MW for commercial sites; and if your solar only feeds your own property, never exporting to the grid (utilities call this Zero Export), there is no cap at all. The missing piece is storage that actually fits a hotel's load — which is mostly thermal, not electrical.
1 · Karnot iVOLT solar & LiFePO₄
Solar inverters and LiFePO₄ batteries sized to the roof you actually have. LiFePO₄ chemistry chosen for tropical safety — no thermal runaway, 6,000+ cycle life. Configured for Zero Export so the only cap is your own daytime demand.
2 · Karnot iHEAT & iCOOL
R290 heat pumps for hot water and reversible air conditioning, CO₂ for kitchen refrigeration. The heat pump is the largest customer of the iVOLT battery — absorbing the solar before it gets exported, banking it as heating or cooling capacity instead.
3 · Thermal batteries that aren't lithium
iSTOR phase-change batteries for hot water, Permafrost for chilled water and cold-chain. 5–10× cheaper per kWh than lithium for thermal loads — with the Karnot FLX coconut-based PCM in development, sourced from the next province over.
We do not sell solar. We do not sell heat pumps. We do not sell batteries. We sell the integrated Philippine solution that lets all three actually work together — behind your meter, sized to your real load, with thermal storage that matches what a hotel actually consumes.
32-room Philippine hotel · DHW retrofit
Based on a published Philippine hospitality benchmark: a 32-room mid-scale hotel running a 44 kW diesel boiler 8 hours/day, consuming approximately 40 litres of diesel daily at ₱65–70/L — annual fuel spend of ~₱1,008,000. Replaced with two 28 kW R290 heat pumps drawing a combined 21.5 kW electrical input, running the same hours at PH industrial electricity rates. Modelled annual electricity spend at COP 5.8: ~₱209,664. Net annual saving: ~₱798,000. Capex on the equipment: roughly ₱1.8M. Simple payback before any BOI incentives: well under 24 months. Real numbers come from a free site audit on your own property.
Capital purchase. BOI tax incentives. Sub-12-month payback.
Karnot equipment is sold outright with a 3-year warranty on the heat-pump core. Energy-efficiency capex may qualify for BOI Pioneer status and Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 — Karnot supports the registration paperwork; the final incentive package is confirmed by BOI on a case-by-case basis. Sub-12-month paybacks are realistic on integrated retrofits combining solar, heat pumps, and thermal storage at hotels paying full commercial grid tariff.
From the day it's commissioned, the bill drops.
Energy Efficiency & Conservation Act incentives.
Most hotel installations qualify. Karnot supplies the BOI registration paperwork as part of the project handover.
- RA 11285 framework — codifies energy efficiency as a public-policy priority
- RA 11285 classification support — Type 1 / Type 2 designated establishment
- BOI registration — Karnot supports application paperwork as standard project scope
- Final incentive package — confirmed by BOI based on project profile and Strategic Investment Priority Plan
- Verify with your tax adviser before commitment — incentives are not guaranteed
Download the Hotels & Resorts Application Brief
The full slide deck and the single-page summary — both ready to share with your facilities team, your CFO or your board.
Engineering Tools for Hotel Projects
Free calculators to size your hotel heat pump system.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much can a Philippine hotel save with a heat pump?
Anchored to the published Philippine 32-room hotel benchmark, DHW retrofit alone delivers approximately ₱25,000 per occupied room per year in savings versus an LPG or diesel boiler. A full thermal retrofit covering pool, spa, kitchen cold storage and chiller upgrades adds a further ₱33,000 per room per year. Real numbers depend on occupancy, hot water demand, pool volume and current fuel cost — confirmed by a free site audit.
What is the payback period for a Karnot installation?
Sub-12-month paybacks are realistic on integrated retrofits combining solar (Karnot iVOLT), heat pumps (iHEAT R290 or iCOOL CO₂), and thermal storage (iSTOR or Permafrost) at sites paying full commercial grid tariff. Standalone retrofits pay back more conservatively — iMESH adiabatic chiller upgrade typically under 12 months, DHW-only retrofit replacing LPG or diesel in 18–24 months. Most installations qualify for BOI Pioneer status and Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285, which shortens payback further. Karnot files the BOI registration paperwork as part of project scope.
Can iHEAT heat a swimming pool?
Yes. The iSPA range (6.5-39kW) is specifically designed for pool heating with COP up to 14.05 and titanium heat exchangers for saltwater resistance. For larger resort pools, iHEAT R290 units provide efficient year-round heating and can be integrated with the hotel domestic hot water system.
Does switching to heat pumps help with SEC PFRS S2?
Yes. Replacing diesel boilers eliminates Scope 1 combustion emissions from your hotel. R290 refrigerant has a GWP of just 3, avoiding the HFC-related Scope 1 disclosures that affect hotels using conventional DX cooling systems with R410A (GWP 2,088).
What happens during a power outage?
iSTOR phase-change thermal batteries store up to 80 kWh of hot water energy, providing hours of backup without electricity. When paired with generator backup, the heat pump restarts automatically and the thermal store bridges the transition period seamlessly.
Why am I being told my solar can only cover 20% of my hotel's consumption?
That 20% figure is not a regulatory cap — it is the daytime self-consumption ceiling that solar gives you without storage. Two routes raise it: (1) the government's April 2026 circular lifted the net metering cap to 1 MW for commercial sites, and (2) if your solar only feeds your own site, never exporting to the grid (utilities call this Zero Export), there is no capacity cap at all. The binding constraint is your ability to absorb the daytime generation — which is exactly what Karnot heat pumps plus thermal storage solve, by banking solar as heating, cooling, and hot water for night-time dispatch.
How does Karnot help with demand charges?
Commercial electricity bills include a demand charge based on the highest 15-minute kVA peak in the billing period. Heat pumps charging a Permafrost or iSTOR thermal battery overnight or during off-peak hours dispatch hot water and chilled water during the daytime peak, so the heat-pump compressor can be sized smaller and run at lower nameplate during the peak window. This shaves the 15-minute peak — often the single largest controllable line on a Philippine commercial electricity bill.
How is Karnot different from MSpectrum, Solaric, or other Philippine solar installers?
They sell solar panels. Karnot sells the integrated solution that lets solar actually work for a hotel: solar plus heat pump plus thermal battery, sized to your real load profile and configured behind the meter. We do not install net-metering systems capped at 20% offset. We engineer Zero Export installations sized to whatever your roof and load can carry. The result is typically 60–80% bill reduction instead of the 4–20% that solar-only installs deliver on a 24/7 hotel.
Ready to Cut Your Hotel Energy Bill by 75%?
Book a free site survey. Our engineers will model your hot water demand, size the system, and show you the exact payback.