I get to stay in an awful lot of hotels in my job. I’m the ski correspondent for The Times newspaper in the UK and also edit the business travel section for Times Online, the paper’s website.The standard of accommodation ranges from simple bunkrooms to luxury boutique hotels but they all have one thing in common, they all use vast amounts of electricity.Just think about all the devices that use electricity in a hotel room: air conditioning, minibar, plasma screen television, CD/DVD player, trouser press, lights and hairdryer. Hotel guests bring their own array of gadgets too – laptops, mobile phones and BlackBerrys that need recharging.That’s without starting to consider the things in the common areas of the hotel, such as swimming pools, kitchens, bars and reception desks.A few years ago, it was estimated that the global hotel industry consumed almost 100 terawatt hours of energy a year and that around half of that is electricity.Hotels have a huge incentive to get a grip on their energy costs. Energy is the second biggest cost for most hotels after staffing and sharp rises in electricity prices in recent years have given hoteliers a huge incentive to reduce their electricity consumption.And that’s without taking into consideration the growing pressure for hotels to be green. Following pressure from environmental groups and consumers alike, hotels are having to prove their green credentials like never before and cut down on energy use.As users of large amounts of electricity, hotels are increasingly going down the route of installing combined heat, cooling and power systems, particularly micro systems which can easily be installed in place of an existing boiler.One study says that European hotels, which use up 39 TWh a year, could reduce their energy use by 20% by moving to such systems.The Nordic hotel chain Scandic is at the forefront of various environmental initiatives, including a scheme that encourages employees to choose cars that run on renewable fuels, but it has also moved from using oil to hydroelectric power in most of its hotels. It has also adopted a system in its rooms so that power is only supplied when the guest has inserted their keycard into a wall slot.   Many other hotels, particularly business hotels, have adopted the keycard system. Hotel chain Starwood, which includes the Sheraton and W hotel brands, is gradually extending the use of key cards to control lighting use in its rooms to stop guests leaving the lights on all day and all night. While lighting does not make up a huge proportion of energy use in hotels, it is a very visible one to address. Most large hotels are committed to using energy-efficient lighting while many I have stayed in – particularly in ski resorts – have installed lighting in corridors controlled by timer switches or motion detectors. Hotels need to change their attitude. I cannot be alone in being annoyed at walking into a hotel room to find every single light switched on, the television blaring away and the heating or air conditioning on full blast. I for one am perfectly capable of switching on the lights or the air-con if I need it. I think things are changing. Until recently, using more electricity was seen as a benefit. The glitzier a hotel’s chandeliers, the cooler its air conditioning and the more feature-packed its in-room entertainment system, the more likely it was to woo guests, particularly high-paying business travellers.The green issue has meant that hotels are at last allowed to focus on cutting their power bills. Earlier this month, the Jurys Hotel in Boston announced it was to buy 7 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy credits to match its usage.The hotel’s general manager Stephen Johnston says: "We believe our investment in green business practices not only sets us apart from our competition, it is embraced by our discerning guests who seek both luxurious amenities alongside sustainable business practices.” If travellers really are choosing their hotels on their green credentials rather than how profligate they are with their services, everyone is likely to be happy.