Category: Ideation

Over the course of National Engineering Month (March), we asked a few members of our technical staff to consider the future of our work - the challenges, technologies, processes and opportunities that lie ahead for the engineering profession. Their responses touch on a wide variety of factors shaping the evolution of consulting engineering. 

What are some of the external forces shaping how the work of consulting engineers is changing?

Decarbonization
Decarbonization of buildings, particularly existing buildings, is a significant challenge facing consulting engineers in the AEC industry. Competing technologies, limited budgets and schedules, and the uniqueness of each building, are the key reasons why decarbonization is such a challenge. The increasing decarbonization demands of the public, regulators, and clients means that this focus will remain top of mind for the next decade.
Ben Russell, Engineer – Health Division

Green technologies  
The continued advancement of existing green technologies, as well as innovative new ones, provide opportunity for novel solutions that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. As an example, anaesthetic gases (halogenated ethers) which are routinely exhausted from hospital operating rooms to the atmosphere (and persist in the environment for a very long time), can now be captured prior to emission and, through cryogenic process, be separated back to their liquid form and then sold as a generic drug.
Edward Hood, Engineering Director, Health Division

Post pandemic labour shortage
The current labour shortage is exerting a substantial amount of pressure on various industries, leading to challenges such as reduced staff retention, longer customer wait times, lower service quality, and higher costs. Consequently, there is a growing dependence on technology as a viable approach for mitigating the difficulties associated with these shortages. Such professionals will be required to remain current with the ever-evolving technological advancements, including critical infrastructure requirements and emerging technologies and will need to have a strategic mindset to align applications for technology with each organization's distinct business objectives.
Robyn Munro, ICAT Consultant – Angus Connect Division

ESG reporting
ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting is having a significant impact on consulting engineering today, as companies increasingly recognize the importance of sustainable practices and social responsibility in their business operations. First, companies are seeking out consulting firms to help them assess and improve their environmental impact from both an energy and occupant wellbeing perspective. Second, ESG reporting is increasing the complexity of consulting engineering work through the use of sensors, and new technology. Finally, ESG reporting is driving innovation using data analytics to optimize energy efficiency. The use of parametric modeling tools is quickly being adopted to expedite decision making at the onset of projects, which can lead to overall carbon savings through the life cycle of the built environment, old and new!
Dayne Perry, Project Manager – Commercial Division

Sustainable energy
The most exciting opportunity for consulting engineers today is the global transition to sustainable energy. This rapid shift has never happened before, and it will require engineers to innovate in many new different ways. This full economic transformation will challenge engineers to bring more than just pure engineering to the building systems and processes we design; it will require us to take into account more of the economic, business, social and human aspects of our designs, as well as the ways in which we solve engineering challenges.
Mike Hassaballa, Engineer - Energy Division

Continuous learning
Consulting engineering is built on people. We know we will need a lot more people going forward, due to both industry growth and the retiring Baby Boomers. Given this, scaling the knowledge and experience of senior engineers, through the use of technology, quality control, and process and practice standardization, is a key challenge for consulting engineers going forward.
Ben Russell, Engineer, Health Division

Data analytics
Looking ahead, the emphasis on data analytics and automation will become more prevalent. Engineering teams will need more and diverse data mining capabilities. Tools will need to be refined to effectively use AI allowing staff to focus on complex detailing. This ensures our buildings will be not only sustainable, but also accessible and resilient.
Dayne Perry, Project Manager – Commercial Division

Technological Innovation

In 5 to 10 years, I see many more industries and buildings shifting rapidly to more sustainable energy sources. It will be more difficult for some than others; however, I have confidence that engineering ingenuity and technological innovation will significantly help those who struggle to be successful.” If you missed any of our staff comments on the challenges, technologies, processes and opportunities that lie ahead in consulting engineering, click on the link below to read more.
Mike Hassaballa, Engineer – Energy Division

Look for HH Angus’ Podcast series – ‘Expanding the Possible’ on our website or wherever you get your podcasts

Skills for the Next Generation of Consulting Engineers
Akira Jones, Director of Digital Services, and Teresa Valentino-Wills, Human Resources Director from HH Angus join us to discuss the skills and qualities the next generation of designers and engineers will need to thrive in a rapidly evolving and increasingly technical industry. Akira and Teresa also talk about what HH Angus looks for with respect to hard and soft skills, important personal attributes, and what “fit” means. Definitely a “must listen” podcast whether you are currently in school, a new graduate or already working in the industry.

The Future of Consulting Engineering
The pace and the degree of change taking place in the engineering profession today is nothing short of staggering, compared to how it was evolving even just a decade ago. Join Akira Jones as he discusses where consulting engineering is heading. Akira is the Director of Digital Services and a Principal at HH Angus, co-chairs its Smart Buildings Committee and is a LEED-certified mechanical engineer by training.

HH Angus’ Innovation Hub recently issued a challenge to staff in the form of an engineering contest: redesign our head office building in Toronto to improve energy and carbon efficiency. But there was a catch - the redesign wasn’t in Toronto!

Participants formed multi-disciplinary teams, and each team chose a different international city; they were then tasked with redesigning our HQ building within the context of that location. The challenge required the presentation of well-researched low-carbon solutions supported by business case rationales to reduce energy consumption and improve occupant comfort. Team proposals were judged on innovative building design, improved energy efficiency, elimination of GHGs, and adherence to the budget, as well as creativity and clarity.

Teams were also encouraged to incorporate smart building ideas, wellness features to improve human health and wellbeing, and to come up with innovative uses for and improvements to the building’s parking area. At stake were cash prizes and bragging rights!

Recently, the British Columbia Construction Roundtable hosted the ‘Electrify BC Roundtable’ in Vancouver. The event focused on the role of electrification in decarbonizing the built environment, as well as the electrification of buildings and energy infrastructure. Attendees were treated to informative presentations from Creative Energy,  BC Hydro and the City of Vancouver. HH Angus co-sponsored the event with Creative Energy. What follows are a few key takeaways from the Roundtable, courtesy of our low carbon energy specialists who attended the event.

The Zero carbon step code takes effect in BC on May 1, 2023. Four new GHG emission levels are being introduced, similar to the BC Energy Step Code. The intent is to reduce the consumption of natural gas used by buildings by moving towards electrification.

Electrification of buildings and energy infrastructure is gaining momentum fast. BC Hydro is making significant investments in distribution infrastructure and working with the province and municipalities on policies to incentivize moving away from fossil fuel energy sources to low or zero-carbon sources.

Good progress is being made in the decarbonization of new construction, and policies are coming from the City of Vancouver to address decarbonization of existing buildings.

The roundtable was a great opportunity to get a big-picture sense of the industry and how various stakeholders are looking at decarbonization.  It’s obvious that a lot is happening in both the public and private sectors.  One of the concerns facing developers is the cost and availability of power.

The Roundtable’s main focus was on electrification of buildings, and the challenges in scaling up distribution:

  • Capacity is there at the system level but distribution at the local level, particularly in high growth areas, requires more focus and development
  • Funding schemes are being reconsidered to help reduce the burden on developments while still protecting ratepayers
  • Current generating capacity can accommodate growth until 2030
  • Some numbers with the BCH electrification plan – 3100 GWh added, 930000 tons of CO2 reduced, 1.6% rate reductions
  • BC Hydro is introducing a voluntary time of day tariff to incentivize reduction in peak loads
  • A lot of natural gas is still in use – approximately half of residential buildings and two-thirds of family homes are heated with natural gas

Creative Energy provided insights on their various projects, including reporting a reduction in carbon by ~40,000 tons of CO2 per year once electrification project is complete. Other Creative Energy projects include waste heat recovery, ocean heat exchange, geo-exchange and, for downtown, they are looking at high-lift heat pumps and steam-to-hot water heat exchangers

The City of Vancouver has the most aggressive targets and is implementing not just the ZEPB (Zero Emissions Plan for Buildings). One of its priorities is to focus on reducing the building loads (i.e. conservation) and finding cleaner energy sources, not just electricity but other district energy solutions (sewage heat recovery, Burnaby incinerator heat recovery for River District). The monitoring of emissions and energy consumption of existing buildings will become mandatory in the city via the Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool for tracking. It will target existing multi-family residential buildings after 2024, and existing commercial buildings larger than 1000 ft2 after 2026. 

For more information on HH Angus’ low carbon and net zero carbon solutions, please contact lowcarbon@hhangus.com.

Ian McRobie

P.Eng., CEM, EGBC, LEED AP BD+C  

Halley O’Byrne

P.Eng., LEED AP

This article appeared in Canadian Healthcare Facilities magazine, Spring 2023

Smart buildings, smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, digital twins, single panes of glass. The healthcare industry is full of tech buzz words and the challenge for facilities is to figure out how to leverage these technologies, and to optimize existing and future infrastructure. More than ever, the adoption and integration of technology can help ease the immense strain on healthcare facilities in Canada.

IoT is a relatively mature technology in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. These highly process-driven environments benefit greatly from incremental change and process improvement that is to be gained from collecting and analyzing data.  

Healthcare facilities are starting to incorporate smart building technology into new build projects; however, there is limited integration with existing facilities, even with major retrofits/renovations. Much like industrial and manufacturing, healthcare is also a highly process-driven sector and it stands to reason that facilities can benefit from IoT technology in much the same way.

HH Angus has been working closely with a health network in the Greater Toronto Area to explore the use of IoT for space optimization. The engineering and consulting firm was tasked with finding use cases that could show value for the health network. Following a series of discussions, a variety of different use cases were identified around gathering data for presence and space utilization within clinical and administrative spaces.

Healthcare facilities’ needs change over time and spaces within existing facilities are often repurposed to meet evolving requirements. It is also of paramount importance that existing space is used in an optimal way. With this in mind, two short-term data collection use cases were developed along with one long-term use case. The ultimate goal in all cases was to use data to drive decision-making.

Mature doctor using digital tablet while looking at screens. Medical professional is wearing scrubs. He is working in control room at hospital.

The short-term use cases looked at near real-time data acquisition to examine clinical space usage on a room-by-room resolution, as well as historical data analysis to optimize the distribution of administrative spaces.

Current space usage data comes from the healthcare facility’s health information system; alternatively, data is gathered by direct observation of a space within the facility. Using simple wireless infrared-based presence sensors and a custom dashboard, the HH Angus team was able to visualize specific data on how a clinical space was occupied throughout the day. By grouping data from similar room types, hourly, daily and weekly trends could be easily seen.

While this data was interesting, it lacked true insight. Healthcare facilities can look at the various data sets but a user would need to spend time sifting through it in order to make observations based on this data.

As the data collection continued, HH Angus and the healthcare facility looked at the individual usages within similar room type groupings to determine if any difference could be observed. There was anecdotal feedback from the clinicians that there would be distinctions. For instance, many of the blood draw rooms were used at a significantly higher rate than other rooms. From a functional perspective, these are adjacent rooms with no specific differences. This begs the questions: Why are patients assigned to the blood draw rooms at different rates? And where is this bias originating? Ultimately, in the short-term, there is no impact on the function of the space but long-term, there is more wear and tear on building assets due to the uneven distribution in usage. Could a change in procedure at the clinical level remove this bias? Or could changes to the functional program prevent this bias in future?

Based on learnings from the first use case, the second short-term use case had a very specific goal. The healthcare facility wanted to understand the overall usage for various administrative spaces. Typically, there is limited data available for administrative space usage. A healthcare facility can harvest card reader data, which is a viable data source for this use case; however, it is limited to areas that have controlled access. Not all areas have card reader data available. Further, card reader data needs to be anonymized and it does not account for tailgaters.

The healthcare facility considered the collection of accurate data important, as the current understanding of space usage came from anecdotal observation and feedback from departments occupying the spaces. Hybrid and remote working due to COVID-19 had fundamentally changed how administrative spaces were being used, and the healthcare facility felt there was opportunity to optimize how spaces across their campus could be utilized.

Again, using a custom data visualization, historical data on administrative space usage was displayed with specific insights on, for example, most favoured days of the week, and the three most and least popular days in a given time period that could be used to make data-driven decisions on space usage.

Rear view of male and female doctors looking at screens. Medical professionals are discussing over security system in control room. They are standing at hospital.

With this data, the healthcare facility can work with the various departments occupying the space to determine if there are options to reorganize, reschedule or combine departments.

The final use case looked at long-term space utilization. When it comes to a new build, the functional programming is a complex challenge that needs to be solved. Functional programming is largely driven by design architects and the clinicians who will be using the space. Both these groups have valuable insight into the spaces, particularly clinicians who want to improve how their existing spaces operate and are programmed. However, by gathering data over a long period to inform future space planning and functional programming, the current process for functional programming and space design can be strengthened with real data. This could be applied when planning a large infrastructure renewal or major retrofit.

There is incredible potential for IoT technology to improve healthcare facilities. The healthcare sector is at the tip of the iceberg in making data-driven decisions as it relates to space usage. As project experience confirms, the focus should be on making sure the right questions are asked to derive the correct use cases to drive value. As vital as the technology is to gathering data, it is secondary to determining the right use case and application. With immense pressure on health systems, engineers can still find new ways to help solve problems and challenges facing Canadian healthcare facilities.

Akira Jones is a principal and Director, Digital Services, at HH Angus and Associates Ltd., which provides engineering and information, communication and automation technology consulting services to healthcare facilities across Canada. Akira can be reached at akira.jones@hhangus.com.

Two of our energy specialists took part in last week’s IDEA (International District Energy Association) Campus Energy 2023 conference in Texas – Mike Hassaballa and Halley O’Byrne. The conference provided a forum for innovative approaches to solving energy and decarbonization needs at the district scale. Here are a few of their conference takeaways on campus district energy (DE) systems.

Heat pump technology

Several manufacturers are warming up to the idea of bringing  higher temperature heat pumps, traditionally used in industrial applications, to the commercial/institutional sector at reasonable costs.

Biomass

Biomass from sustainable forestry operations could offer a good, cost-effective alternative to sectors currently using dirty fuel sources, such as oil heating. This can be effective in areas where natural gas and electricity are not available at low cost, such as in eastern Canada, and could potentially provide a useful forest management tool. Additionally, a properly-designed biomass energy-generation system, in conjunction with carbon sequestration and a well-managed fuel harvesting program, can result in a carbon-negative solution, with potential to recover costs via offsets.

U.S. Inflation Reduction Act

This act in the US offers a huge incentive for low carbon solutions. What was striking to us is the proposed hydrogen tax credit of 0.6 $/kg. For those looking at hydrogen economics, this is significant.

Low Carbon Financials

Many case studies and presentations at the conference stressed the fact that effective low carbon energy master planning requires extensive work on the business case - from cost to life cycle cost analysis and financial risk analysis. This process extends beyond the financial to include social aspects such as broadening awareness and stakeholder mobilization, and that professional facilitation is required to make the social aspect work.

Next Gen District Energy Technology

Some institutions are starting to look into next generation  solutions for transitioning to more sustainable heating and cooling infrastructure,  such as small modular reactors (SMRs) and micro-nuclear power plants (think shipping container size and capacity as low as 1MW), as well as Deep Geothermal. However, there is alack of awareness that needs to be addressed and work to be done on building up basic knowledge of what these technologies are, their costs, and relevance to North American markets. Though these solutions are technically feasible, safe, and potentially economical, establishing appropriate regulatory frameworks and garnering sufficient public awareness do pose a challenge to their implementation.

Existing Infrastructure

There were also affirmations of more developed pathways to electrification, such as efficiency improvements for existing plants and optimization strategies to incrementally decarbonize. These approaches all take into account local needs, regulatory conditions, resource availability, incentive programs and other constraints and tools that help define the appropriate combination of solutions for particular sites.

Across the technologies and project examples, there were some common themes. Establishing current baseline performance to set appropriate targets and benchmarks, proper master planning and feasibility analysis, stakeholder engagement (including garnering public acceptance), alignment of values and interests, and diligence in creating any project are all needed to achieve successful outcomes, regardless of the technology involved.

For more information on HH Angus’ low carbon/net zero carbon solutions, please contact lowcarbon@hhangus.com.

 

Mike Hassaballa, P.Eng.

 

Halley O’Byrne, P.Eng.