Episode 9 “Sustainable Engineering”
Welcome to Expanding the Possible. This podcast from HH Angus explores how engineering is advancing the built environment - from innovations and building systems to the Internet of Things, from digital services connecting the modern workplace to combating the impact of climate change, we delve into exciting developments and building infrastructure.
Hello, I'm Kirsten Nielsen. On today's podcast, we're talking about sustainable engineering; in other words, designing buildings and energy systems that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of climate change on our communities and the planet is very real. So, if you're a climate change denier or questioning the science, this is not the podcast for you today! For example, according to the Canada Green Building Council, the building sector is Canada's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. They estimate that residential, commercial, and institutional buildings contribute 17% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, and when you include the carbon cost of building materials and construction, this level approaches 30%.
Joining me today are a trio of senior engineers and managers at HH Angus, all of whom are closely focused on decarbonization. They are Nick Stark, Executive Vice President, Philip Schuyler, the Director of HH Angus' Energy Division, and Mike Hassaballa, who has the relevant role of Manager of Decarbonization in the Energy Division. Welcome, gentlemen.
As designers and engineers of buildings, the architecture, engineering and construction industry (AEC) has an outsize role to play in ensuring the success of sustainable development. And at HH Angus, we believe that decarbonizing the built environment is an area where we can make significant contributions, both from the perspective of the buildings’ energy efficiency as well as the energy source that the buildings use for heating and cooling.
So, let me start by going around the table and asking each of you what sustainable engineering, or sustainable building design, means to you. Nick, you've been a flag bearer for sustainable development for some years now at HH Angus. How do you define sustainable engineering?
Nick Stark
Sustainable design has been a work in progress in my four and a half decades at HH Angus, from my early days of solar thermal panels and energy modeling, and helping HH Angus win the National Research Council Low Energy Building Design award, to building a super-insulated house. I've always tried to make a case for being energy efficient while minimizing our impact on the environment. However, with the realization that global warming, primarily driven by carbon emissions, was having disastrous impacts, I now know that minimizing or ideally eliminating carbon emissions is an even more important aspect of sustainable design.
There's another aspect of sustainability that is, I believe, often overlooked. The question I like to ask is, “will a facility serve the needs it was intended for over the long term?” If not, it could be the most efficient building but, if it becomes functionally obsolete, then it is a waste of resources. So, on top of minimizing its impact on the environment, qualities such as flexibility and resilience are key to making a facility sustainable over its lifetime.
Kirsten Nielsen
Phil, the division you lead, the Energy Division, is heavily involved in decarbonization of energy systems. How do you define sustainable engineering?
Phil Schuyler
Well, I think it means understanding all the negative environmental impacts of your design, both direct and indirect, and attempting to find ways to either mitigate or eliminate those impacts. I think it's important to think of construction impacts as you're building and understanding those sorts of things, but also understanding the ongoing energy need of the building and how that energy is going to be created for the life of the building. It's about putting in that time early on, thinking about the concepts and not necessarily jumping in and doing it the exact same way as you did last time, because that is kind of what has gotten us to this point.
Part of our role in this is to continue to be strong advocates and explaining the importance of sustainability, financially, that is one aspect, but also understanding we are stewards to the public and to the environment. It's really coming right out of our code of ethics as engineers. I think it falls directly as our duty to the public and to the environment that we continue to build upon this sustainable engineering. bv
Kirsten Nielsen
Mike, your responsibilities include spearheading efforts to decarbonize heating and cooling systems and promote eco-friendly building practices. What's your take on sustainable engineering?
Mike Hassaballa
Well Kirsten, sustainable engineering, when we look into it in the context of heating and cooling systems and buildings, it is an essential aspect of how we're designing buildings. So, we're focusing on designing, operating, and maintaining a building in a manner that is energy efficient and resource efficient. So, this engineering approach helps us reduce the carbon footprint and ultimately mitigate climate change impact, but also when we're thinking of it in the context of a building, as Nick was saying, over its whole life cycle, we're trying to improve the long-term performance of the systems inside the building.
There are many considerations when we're looking into sustainable engineering for heating and cooling systems in the building. That could include energy efficiency, integrating renewable energy system, integrating low carbon technologies, looking into sustainable building practices and, when we're designing an operating system, making sure that we're paying attention to life cycle costs for the building over an extended period of time, making sure that we are continuously improving the performance of the building over its life cycle. So that's what it means to me in practice.
Kirsten Nielsen
Well, speaking of practice, we have some really exciting projects that we're working on here at HH Angus in the whole area of sustainable engineering and reducing carbon footprint. Phil, let me start with you, if you can tell us a little bit about what's going on in Vancouver and Creative Energy and that project. It's a very exciting development for the people of Vancouver.
Phil Schuyler
Yeah, the Beatty District Energy Steam Plant in downtown Vancouver is a good example. It's an old plant that was built probably in the 60s or so. It serves 200 buildings downtown Vancouver and is probably the largest district energy plant in the city and is actually currently one of the largest GHG emitters of the city also. The project consists of two components. The most interesting component for this discussion is the large decarbonization components, so we're putting in some new electric boilers and, as a result of this, actually increasing the capacity from the BC Hydro feed. This is also supplemented with a natural gas plant, a more high efficiency one than the current one to assist with the peaking winter loads to serve those 200 buildings downtown Vancouver.
Kirsten Nielsen
And Mike, you're working on a really exciting project in Toronto for Enwave - tell us a little bit about that one.
Mike Hassaballa
There is a huge district energy system in Toronto that has been around for decades now. It's the Enwave District Energy System, which serves more than 100 buildings in downtown Toronto, and HH Angus was involved in the original design of that system. Many of the buildings that are being heated in downtown Toronto are connected to the system, they are heated by steam. As many know, steam is a high temperature, high density energy carrier that's being used in many applications, notably in Toronto being used in hospitals.
The project that we're working on right now is moving part of the district energy system from that steam system into a hot water system. And with the move from a steam to a hot water system, a lot of district energy providers are making that switch from steam to hot water for many reasons that we can talk about in later episodes. But the essence of this project is that we are recovering heat during the winter peak times. We’re using heat pump technology to recover heat from sources that are present in the winter, and we're using that heating to operate the hot water district that Enwave is constructing in downtown Toronto. It's one of the biggest heat pump systems in North America. More than 61,000,000 BTUs could be heating the equivalent of thousands of houses, so that's quite interesting and the magnitude of this project is going to have a big impact on the emissions of the district in downtown Toronto.
Kirsten Nielsen
And if I remember correctly, I think there are over 130 buildings connected to that system, and that it's one of the largest in in North America, which means it’s potentially one of the largest in the world, so pretty exciting stuff.
Nick, going back to BC for a moment, you’re leading the project that we're involved in on Vancouver Island for Cowichan. Can you tell us about that project?
Nick Stark
The Cowichan District Hospital project is a new 60,000 square metre facility on Vancouver Island, and the owner set an aggressive carbon reduction target while still expecting there would be gas-fired boilers for heating. The result would have likely put it among the lowest level of carbon emissions of any hospital in Canada. Our team looked at a number of different approaches and concluded that, in the end, it was viable to eliminate natural gas entirely and use the heat pumps as the primary heating source. The owner was very supportive of our approach and an application was made to the Canadian Green Building Council's Net Zero Carbon program. It remains the only hospital registered for the Net Zero program. To get there required some innovative approaches. One of the challenges with heat pumps is they only work if there's something else that can be cooled down to extract the heat. For the Cowichan project, water source heat pumps are the most efficient heat source, and they are supplemented with air source pumps. Electric boilers are then used as part of the solution to deal with extreme cold and to provide redundancy. HH Angus developed a unique air handling unit arrangement that enhances our ability to recover heat year-round while minimizing humidification and cooling loads. Coming up with their design was a big effort by many, with much more analysis than in the past, but we feel it has been a worthwhile exercise and given us the confidence that Net Zero Carbon is achievable in all types of facilities.
Kirsten Nielsen
Those are all really exciting projects and I know everyone at HH Angus is very proud to be involved with them. They are all new facilities, so there is also vast potential for environmental benefits and decarbonizing existing buildings. How does our design approach - Nick, I'll start with you - how does our design approach differ when it comes to decarbonizing an existing building?
Nick Stark
Studies say we've already built 80 to 90% of the buildings that will be around in 2050 when all buildings are targeted to be net zero. So, we have a huge mountain to climb in that aspect. In many respects, new buildings are easy to target net zero because one is starting with a blank slate. With existing buildings, we are ‘stuck’ with what's already there as a starting point. However, the existing conditions do help narrow down the options. Typically, we would start by modeling the performance of the building as it is, but using future weather files and then using a number of different software tools, we would start testing different retrofit scenarios.
Kirsten Nielsen
And Mike, what are you seeing in your role as Manager, Decarbonization, when it comes to clients who have existing buildings that they would like to see their carbon footprint reduced?
Mike Hassaballa
For our approach, I like it to be simple, but ‘simple’ does not mean it's an easy task for us for existing buildings. The challenges in existing buildings are that these buildings have been operating for some time so there are people who are operating these buildings, there are tenants in these buildings, so there is more work to be done on engaging the stakeholders that are involved with the operation of the building and owners of the building. So that's part of it.
The other thing is the legacy buildings and legacy systems that could be retrofitted and upgraded, looking into multiple options. So again, saying a simple approach, we're looking into multiple options, looking into how this building is performing and how could it be performing in the future, and combining these two things about making sure that we're engaging the stakeholders, providing them with options. This simple approach usually leads to success and implementation of solutions that could help reduce carbon in these old buildings.
Kirsten Nielsen
Phil, how do you see our design approach changing when it comes to how we decarbonize existing buildings?
00:12:38 Phil Schuyler
Well, similar to what Mike and Nick have already alluded to, one of the services where we're doing a lot of work is energy master planning for existing facilities. A lot of times if you do things like that in a silo, they become almost insurmountable to get done. So, one of the key successes to some of our clients is overlaying that with all their infrastructure updates as a requirement to keep their building running and maintained.
So, it's important to take a holistic approach. When you're replacing a boiler 10-15 years down the road, you're not necessarily replacing it ‘like for like’; you're looking at different solutions and you're prepared at that time to properly provide either renewable type solutions or at least low carbon solutions to maximize your changes with all sorts of infrastructure renewal, not just capital, large scale projects.
Kirsten Nielsen
Thank you. What are you all seeing in the market in terms of trends or pressures that are driving heightened awareness around the growth of sustainable building design? One of the things that I'm thinking of is recently we heard the province of Alberta putting out an alert to citizens to cut down their electrical use during a particularly difficult winter temperature situation. So, there are all kinds of pressures around how we sustain the energy supply for these buildings. Nick, what are you seeing out there in terms of the heightened awareness and where we go from here?
Nick Stark
I guess I'd like to step back from market trends because I really find they're a lagging indicator, and trends tend to form because of underlying forces. And by far the most powerful force, in my view, in driving sustainable design is the drastic warming of our planet Earth. You know, last year was the hottest on record, with the average temperature already one and a half degrees warmer. And it's on track to go much higher. Unfortunately, despite the dire consequences, very little has been done to try and halt, let alone reverse, the impacts. So, for too long, global warming and carbon reduction have been used as a political football. Alberta is a great example of that.
And if there's a trend I would like to see, it would be to have more certainty going forward. Fortunately, in many jurisdictions, there seems to be considerable momentum on many fronts to reduce carbon emissions. So, to that end, we need to make sure every project at HH Angus maximizes the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and we need to do that now. The deadlines that have been set to meet emission reduction targets, you know, are looming and tend to pass without targets being met. In many cases when we're supposed to be seeing a decrease, we're actually seeing an increase, which is not a good situation. So, I think HH Angus has the opportunity to use our expertise and influence to maximize carbon reduction on every project we get involved with. I came across the phrase recently, “if not now, when”. There really is not a ‘tomorrow’ to reduce our impact.
Kirsten Nielsen
Very true - very true and alarming. Phil, what would you like to call out in terms of impact on sustainable building design?
Phil Schuyler
The uptick of these large-scale mixed-use developments in these densely built, call them ‘walkable’ communities, has definitely been increasing, which I think is an extremely positive thing for our cities, as well as our ability to decarbonize by densely packing, and putting things like district energy and decarbonized solutions are much easier in these densely packed areas. Whereas I think the days of detached single dwelling homes is something that we do really need to think of holistically of whether that's the right thing to do moving forward or whether we should be changing how we build and how we densify our spaces. The other two things that I have noted is, we've been very heavily involved in cogeneration projects. Historically, we're starting to see clients coming and asking us “What now? What do we do with this thing? And do we keep running it? And how do we work with it?” So that's a definite change. And then the other thing is the indigenous community’s involvement where we're seeing them really act as leaders in this push, and it's really exciting to see that real push from that community so, it's excellent.
Kirsten Nielsen
And that ties back to what Nick was talking about with the Cowichan Hospital project as well. Mike, what about you - what do you see driving the current situation?
Mike Hassaballa
Kirsten, from my perspective, there are three types of forces affecting sustainable building design. The first force is the costs, so there are some drivers for cost. These drivers may be the carbon pricing or the carbon taxes that are affecting the cost of heating for our buildings. Also, there is the falling cost for next-generation technologies, so renewable energy systems, heat pump technologies, new technologies. These costs are falling rapidly with time, so the costs have become a very important force in achieving emission reductions. As the carbon taxes go up, the technology prices go down. This is going to impact the carbon emissions and buildings.
The second force that's out there is policy and regulation. The federal government has been leading the way, implementing the carbon taxes and looking into clean fuel standards now and initiating a lot of programs out there for incentives for clean energy and emission reduction projects. But also on the municipal level, the municipal governments are coming up with municipal standards for emissions, such as the Toronto Green Standard, and all municipalities around Canada from west to east, they are leading the way with much stricter standards on buildings. So that’s driving our industry and the building owners and the operators to reduce emissions.
The third force is really the market and the social drivers. There's a lot of urgency and public pressure, as Nick mentioned, on the people who are designing buildings, the people who are building and operating these buildings, to reduce carbon emissions and making sure that the buildings are being built and operated in a sustainable manner. So that's the third force out there, which is the social drivers and the market drivers.
Kirsten Nielsen
What does HH Angus’ sustainability practice look like today, and how do you see that changing in the near term? Phil, let me start with you.
Phil Schuyler
I think sustainability practice is essentially going to be engineering practice in the near term. I don't think we can distinguish between those two. I think all projects have to consider sustainability and carbon, no matter what sector, what building type. It is a fundamental engineering consideration, and I would even consider this now, as Nick pointed out. It is a life safety consideration and should be dealt with in the same sort of vein. At HH Angus specifically, we have our energy group that's well positioned in low carbon and master planning to help support the education and the expertise. I see us chasing impactful work and making sure we're involved in things that change the community for the better. We spoke about 3 projects that are quite impactful and I know there's a lot of pride and importance, people get a sense of pride in the important work that we're doing. So, I do see our key focus is really focusing in on impactful work. And it keeps people interested, for retention. It's also just exciting to be a part of these changes.
Kirsten Nielsen
Nick, I see you nodding through a lot of what Phil was saying. Your thoughts on this?
Nick Stark
I mentioned with the Cowichan project, it required much more upfront analysis than in the past. And this is really the key when we're working on building projects, is that analysis and doing it early. You can't do it late because it's too late to make changes, so you’ve got to do it right from the start. And to do that, there's definitely some specialist skills that are required for this analysis and we've been building these skills for many years. And we now have a growing team of specialists who work to support that individual kind of project design team. So, on top of having the people is having the right tools, and to achieve the low carbon targets, we've invested in a number of different, quite powerful software programs. And it's not just investing in the program, it's investing in knowing how to use the program and maximize it to our advantage.
One tool I would like to highlight is our ability to do parametric analysis and this is something we've built out of several different kinds of pieces of software that we run together. This is where we set up a number of different variables that we can individually adjust in real time to optimize the solution. So, a good example is the work we did on the typical patient room. We did it for Cowichan. We've done it for a few hospitals since, and we're doing one right as we speak. So, we're able to input variables like the wall thermal performance, the window thermal performance, the window size, the shading coefficient, the ventilation system, the weather data, and put these all together so that we can individually adjust each of these things with sliders. In the end, it shows the performance, both in terms of energy and carbon that you're getting with each of these solutions, and we found it really, really helpful in making decisions with our clients and the rest of the design team to say, “how do we meet our minimum targets and, not just that, but how do we get there most effectively?
Kirsten Nielsen
It sounds exciting when you have the tools and the expertise together in the service of our clients and sustainable design. Mike, I'll end with you. What do you see happening soon in our sustainability practice, where do you see it going?
Mike Hassaballa
I expect that there will be a lot of action on the ground, from building the carbonization projects ‒ and we will move from the stage of just talking about the projects with the clients and to actually implementing them ‒ building these projects, retrofitting these old buildings. The word of caution for people who are thinking about this now: please take action, because for latecomers, I expect there will not be a lot of time left to achieve their goals, which means for us that the project will be much more fast-paced, which puts a lot of pressure on the industry as a whole because for those who waited, there will be only a couple of years, three years left to get projects done to achieve their goals. So, I'll end there, but that's what I'm expecting in the future.
Kirsten Nielsen
Bright horizon! Gentlemen, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your expertise in sustainable engineering. This is a design approach that we actively engage in and promote. So, I'm sure we'll have a lot more to talk about around decarbonization and electrification on an ongoing basis. Our guests today have been Nick Stark, Philip Schuyler and Mike Hassaballa from HH Angus.
If you are interested in speaking to any of our experts about decarbonization of new or built facilities, you can reach us anytime by sending an e-mail to lowcarbon@hhangus.com. Again, that's lowcarbon@hhangus.com.
Thank you for joining us today. I'm Kirsten Nielsen. We look forward to connecting with you again on our next podcast here on Expanding the Possible. Have a great day!
Hello, I'm Kirsten Nielsen. On today's podcast, we're talking about sustainable engineering; in other words, designing buildings and energy systems that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of climate change on our communities and the planet is very real. So, if you're a climate change denier or questioning the science, this is not the podcast for you today! For example, according to the Canada Green Building Council, the building sector is Canada's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. They estimate that residential, commercial, and institutional buildings contribute 17% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, and when you include the carbon cost of building materials and construction, this level approaches 30%.
Joining me today are a trio of senior engineers and managers at HH Angus, all of whom are closely focused on decarbonization. They are Nick Stark, Executive Vice President, Philip Schuyler, the Director of HH Angus' Energy Division, and Mike Hassaballa, who has the relevant role of Manager of Decarbonization in the Energy Division. Welcome, gentlemen.
As designers and engineers of buildings, the architecture, engineering and construction industry (AEC) has an outsize role to play in ensuring the success of sustainable development. And at HH Angus, we believe that decarbonizing the built environment is an area where we can make significant contributions, both from the perspective of the buildings’ energy efficiency as well as the energy source that the buildings use for heating and cooling.
So, let me start by going around the table and asking each of you what sustainable engineering, or sustainable building design, means to you. Nick, you've been a flag bearer for sustainable development for some years now at HH Angus. How do you define sustainable engineering?
Nick Stark
Sustainable design has been a work in progress in my four and a half decades at HH Angus, from my early days of solar thermal panels and energy modeling, and helping HH Angus win the National Research Council Low Energy Building Design award, to building a super-insulated house. I've always tried to make a case for being energy efficient while minimizing our impact on the environment. However, with the realization that global warming, primarily driven by carbon emissions, was having disastrous impacts, I now know that minimizing or ideally eliminating carbon emissions is an even more important aspect of sustainable design.
There's another aspect of sustainability that is, I believe, often overlooked. The question I like to ask is, “will a facility serve the needs it was intended for over the long term?” If not, it could be the most efficient building but, if it becomes functionally obsolete, then it is a waste of resources. So, on top of minimizing its impact on the environment, qualities such as flexibility and resilience are key to making a facility sustainable over its lifetime.
Kirsten Nielsen
Phil, the division you lead, the Energy Division, is heavily involved in decarbonization of energy systems. How do you define sustainable engineering?
Phil Schuyler
Well, I think it means understanding all the negative environmental impacts of your design, both direct and indirect, and attempting to find ways to either mitigate or eliminate those impacts. I think it's important to think of construction impacts as you're building and understanding those sorts of things, but also understanding the ongoing energy need of the building and how that energy is going to be created for the life of the building. It's about putting in that time early on, thinking about the concepts and not necessarily jumping in and doing it the exact same way as you did last time, because that is kind of what has gotten us to this point.
Part of our role in this is to continue to be strong advocates and explaining the importance of sustainability, financially, that is one aspect, but also understanding we are stewards to the public and to the environment. It's really coming right out of our code of ethics as engineers. I think it falls directly as our duty to the public and to the environment that we continue to build upon this sustainable engineering. bv
Kirsten Nielsen
Mike, your responsibilities include spearheading efforts to decarbonize heating and cooling systems and promote eco-friendly building practices. What's your take on sustainable engineering?
Mike Hassaballa
Well Kirsten, sustainable engineering, when we look into it in the context of heating and cooling systems and buildings, it is an essential aspect of how we're designing buildings. So, we're focusing on designing, operating, and maintaining a building in a manner that is energy efficient and resource efficient. So, this engineering approach helps us reduce the carbon footprint and ultimately mitigate climate change impact, but also when we're thinking of it in the context of a building, as Nick was saying, over its whole life cycle, we're trying to improve the long-term performance of the systems inside the building.
There are many considerations when we're looking into sustainable engineering for heating and cooling systems in the building. That could include energy efficiency, integrating renewable energy system, integrating low carbon technologies, looking into sustainable building practices and, when we're designing an operating system, making sure that we're paying attention to life cycle costs for the building over an extended period of time, making sure that we are continuously improving the performance of the building over its life cycle. So that's what it means to me in practice.
Kirsten Nielsen
Well, speaking of practice, we have some really exciting projects that we're working on here at HH Angus in the whole area of sustainable engineering and reducing carbon footprint. Phil, let me start with you, if you can tell us a little bit about what's going on in Vancouver and Creative Energy and that project. It's a very exciting development for the people of Vancouver.
Phil Schuyler
Yeah, the Beatty District Energy Steam Plant in downtown Vancouver is a good example. It's an old plant that was built probably in the 60s or so. It serves 200 buildings downtown Vancouver and is probably the largest district energy plant in the city and is actually currently one of the largest GHG emitters of the city also. The project consists of two components. The most interesting component for this discussion is the large decarbonization components, so we're putting in some new electric boilers and, as a result of this, actually increasing the capacity from the BC Hydro feed. This is also supplemented with a natural gas plant, a more high efficiency one than the current one to assist with the peaking winter loads to serve those 200 buildings downtown Vancouver.
Kirsten Nielsen
And Mike, you're working on a really exciting project in Toronto for Enwave - tell us a little bit about that one.
Mike Hassaballa
There is a huge district energy system in Toronto that has been around for decades now. It's the Enwave District Energy System, which serves more than 100 buildings in downtown Toronto, and HH Angus was involved in the original design of that system. Many of the buildings that are being heated in downtown Toronto are connected to the system, they are heated by steam. As many know, steam is a high temperature, high density energy carrier that's being used in many applications, notably in Toronto being used in hospitals.
The project that we're working on right now is moving part of the district energy system from that steam system into a hot water system. And with the move from a steam to a hot water system, a lot of district energy providers are making that switch from steam to hot water for many reasons that we can talk about in later episodes. But the essence of this project is that we are recovering heat during the winter peak times. We’re using heat pump technology to recover heat from sources that are present in the winter, and we're using that heating to operate the hot water district that Enwave is constructing in downtown Toronto. It's one of the biggest heat pump systems in North America. More than 61,000,000 BTUs could be heating the equivalent of thousands of houses, so that's quite interesting and the magnitude of this project is going to have a big impact on the emissions of the district in downtown Toronto.
Kirsten Nielsen
And if I remember correctly, I think there are over 130 buildings connected to that system, and that it's one of the largest in in North America, which means it’s potentially one of the largest in the world, so pretty exciting stuff.
Nick, going back to BC for a moment, you’re leading the project that we're involved in on Vancouver Island for Cowichan. Can you tell us about that project?
Nick Stark
The Cowichan District Hospital project is a new 60,000 square metre facility on Vancouver Island, and the owner set an aggressive carbon reduction target while still expecting there would be gas-fired boilers for heating. The result would have likely put it among the lowest level of carbon emissions of any hospital in Canada. Our team looked at a number of different approaches and concluded that, in the end, it was viable to eliminate natural gas entirely and use the heat pumps as the primary heating source. The owner was very supportive of our approach and an application was made to the Canadian Green Building Council's Net Zero Carbon program. It remains the only hospital registered for the Net Zero program. To get there required some innovative approaches. One of the challenges with heat pumps is they only work if there's something else that can be cooled down to extract the heat. For the Cowichan project, water source heat pumps are the most efficient heat source, and they are supplemented with air source pumps. Electric boilers are then used as part of the solution to deal with extreme cold and to provide redundancy. HH Angus developed a unique air handling unit arrangement that enhances our ability to recover heat year-round while minimizing humidification and cooling loads. Coming up with their design was a big effort by many, with much more analysis than in the past, but we feel it has been a worthwhile exercise and given us the confidence that Net Zero Carbon is achievable in all types of facilities.
Kirsten Nielsen
Those are all really exciting projects and I know everyone at HH Angus is very proud to be involved with them. They are all new facilities, so there is also vast potential for environmental benefits and decarbonizing existing buildings. How does our design approach - Nick, I'll start with you - how does our design approach differ when it comes to decarbonizing an existing building?
Nick Stark
Studies say we've already built 80 to 90% of the buildings that will be around in 2050 when all buildings are targeted to be net zero. So, we have a huge mountain to climb in that aspect. In many respects, new buildings are easy to target net zero because one is starting with a blank slate. With existing buildings, we are ‘stuck’ with what's already there as a starting point. However, the existing conditions do help narrow down the options. Typically, we would start by modeling the performance of the building as it is, but using future weather files and then using a number of different software tools, we would start testing different retrofit scenarios.
Kirsten Nielsen
And Mike, what are you seeing in your role as Manager, Decarbonization, when it comes to clients who have existing buildings that they would like to see their carbon footprint reduced?
Mike Hassaballa
For our approach, I like it to be simple, but ‘simple’ does not mean it's an easy task for us for existing buildings. The challenges in existing buildings are that these buildings have been operating for some time so there are people who are operating these buildings, there are tenants in these buildings, so there is more work to be done on engaging the stakeholders that are involved with the operation of the building and owners of the building. So that's part of it.
The other thing is the legacy buildings and legacy systems that could be retrofitted and upgraded, looking into multiple options. So again, saying a simple approach, we're looking into multiple options, looking into how this building is performing and how could it be performing in the future, and combining these two things about making sure that we're engaging the stakeholders, providing them with options. This simple approach usually leads to success and implementation of solutions that could help reduce carbon in these old buildings.
Kirsten Nielsen
Phil, how do you see our design approach changing when it comes to how we decarbonize existing buildings?
00:12:38 Phil Schuyler
Well, similar to what Mike and Nick have already alluded to, one of the services where we're doing a lot of work is energy master planning for existing facilities. A lot of times if you do things like that in a silo, they become almost insurmountable to get done. So, one of the key successes to some of our clients is overlaying that with all their infrastructure updates as a requirement to keep their building running and maintained.
So, it's important to take a holistic approach. When you're replacing a boiler 10-15 years down the road, you're not necessarily replacing it ‘like for like’; you're looking at different solutions and you're prepared at that time to properly provide either renewable type solutions or at least low carbon solutions to maximize your changes with all sorts of infrastructure renewal, not just capital, large scale projects.
Kirsten Nielsen
Thank you. What are you all seeing in the market in terms of trends or pressures that are driving heightened awareness around the growth of sustainable building design? One of the things that I'm thinking of is recently we heard the province of Alberta putting out an alert to citizens to cut down their electrical use during a particularly difficult winter temperature situation. So, there are all kinds of pressures around how we sustain the energy supply for these buildings. Nick, what are you seeing out there in terms of the heightened awareness and where we go from here?
Nick Stark
I guess I'd like to step back from market trends because I really find they're a lagging indicator, and trends tend to form because of underlying forces. And by far the most powerful force, in my view, in driving sustainable design is the drastic warming of our planet Earth. You know, last year was the hottest on record, with the average temperature already one and a half degrees warmer. And it's on track to go much higher. Unfortunately, despite the dire consequences, very little has been done to try and halt, let alone reverse, the impacts. So, for too long, global warming and carbon reduction have been used as a political football. Alberta is a great example of that.
And if there's a trend I would like to see, it would be to have more certainty going forward. Fortunately, in many jurisdictions, there seems to be considerable momentum on many fronts to reduce carbon emissions. So, to that end, we need to make sure every project at HH Angus maximizes the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and we need to do that now. The deadlines that have been set to meet emission reduction targets, you know, are looming and tend to pass without targets being met. In many cases when we're supposed to be seeing a decrease, we're actually seeing an increase, which is not a good situation. So, I think HH Angus has the opportunity to use our expertise and influence to maximize carbon reduction on every project we get involved with. I came across the phrase recently, “if not now, when”. There really is not a ‘tomorrow’ to reduce our impact.
Kirsten Nielsen
Very true - very true and alarming. Phil, what would you like to call out in terms of impact on sustainable building design?
Phil Schuyler
The uptick of these large-scale mixed-use developments in these densely built, call them ‘walkable’ communities, has definitely been increasing, which I think is an extremely positive thing for our cities, as well as our ability to decarbonize by densely packing, and putting things like district energy and decarbonized solutions are much easier in these densely packed areas. Whereas I think the days of detached single dwelling homes is something that we do really need to think of holistically of whether that's the right thing to do moving forward or whether we should be changing how we build and how we densify our spaces. The other two things that I have noted is, we've been very heavily involved in cogeneration projects. Historically, we're starting to see clients coming and asking us “What now? What do we do with this thing? And do we keep running it? And how do we work with it?” So that's a definite change. And then the other thing is the indigenous community’s involvement where we're seeing them really act as leaders in this push, and it's really exciting to see that real push from that community so, it's excellent.
Kirsten Nielsen
And that ties back to what Nick was talking about with the Cowichan Hospital project as well. Mike, what about you - what do you see driving the current situation?
Mike Hassaballa
Kirsten, from my perspective, there are three types of forces affecting sustainable building design. The first force is the costs, so there are some drivers for cost. These drivers may be the carbon pricing or the carbon taxes that are affecting the cost of heating for our buildings. Also, there is the falling cost for next-generation technologies, so renewable energy systems, heat pump technologies, new technologies. These costs are falling rapidly with time, so the costs have become a very important force in achieving emission reductions. As the carbon taxes go up, the technology prices go down. This is going to impact the carbon emissions and buildings.
The second force that's out there is policy and regulation. The federal government has been leading the way, implementing the carbon taxes and looking into clean fuel standards now and initiating a lot of programs out there for incentives for clean energy and emission reduction projects. But also on the municipal level, the municipal governments are coming up with municipal standards for emissions, such as the Toronto Green Standard, and all municipalities around Canada from west to east, they are leading the way with much stricter standards on buildings. So that’s driving our industry and the building owners and the operators to reduce emissions.
The third force is really the market and the social drivers. There's a lot of urgency and public pressure, as Nick mentioned, on the people who are designing buildings, the people who are building and operating these buildings, to reduce carbon emissions and making sure that the buildings are being built and operated in a sustainable manner. So that's the third force out there, which is the social drivers and the market drivers.
Kirsten Nielsen
What does HH Angus’ sustainability practice look like today, and how do you see that changing in the near term? Phil, let me start with you.
Phil Schuyler
I think sustainability practice is essentially going to be engineering practice in the near term. I don't think we can distinguish between those two. I think all projects have to consider sustainability and carbon, no matter what sector, what building type. It is a fundamental engineering consideration, and I would even consider this now, as Nick pointed out. It is a life safety consideration and should be dealt with in the same sort of vein. At HH Angus specifically, we have our energy group that's well positioned in low carbon and master planning to help support the education and the expertise. I see us chasing impactful work and making sure we're involved in things that change the community for the better. We spoke about 3 projects that are quite impactful and I know there's a lot of pride and importance, people get a sense of pride in the important work that we're doing. So, I do see our key focus is really focusing in on impactful work. And it keeps people interested, for retention. It's also just exciting to be a part of these changes.
Kirsten Nielsen
Nick, I see you nodding through a lot of what Phil was saying. Your thoughts on this?
Nick Stark
I mentioned with the Cowichan project, it required much more upfront analysis than in the past. And this is really the key when we're working on building projects, is that analysis and doing it early. You can't do it late because it's too late to make changes, so you’ve got to do it right from the start. And to do that, there's definitely some specialist skills that are required for this analysis and we've been building these skills for many years. And we now have a growing team of specialists who work to support that individual kind of project design team. So, on top of having the people is having the right tools, and to achieve the low carbon targets, we've invested in a number of different, quite powerful software programs. And it's not just investing in the program, it's investing in knowing how to use the program and maximize it to our advantage.
One tool I would like to highlight is our ability to do parametric analysis and this is something we've built out of several different kinds of pieces of software that we run together. This is where we set up a number of different variables that we can individually adjust in real time to optimize the solution. So, a good example is the work we did on the typical patient room. We did it for Cowichan. We've done it for a few hospitals since, and we're doing one right as we speak. So, we're able to input variables like the wall thermal performance, the window thermal performance, the window size, the shading coefficient, the ventilation system, the weather data, and put these all together so that we can individually adjust each of these things with sliders. In the end, it shows the performance, both in terms of energy and carbon that you're getting with each of these solutions, and we found it really, really helpful in making decisions with our clients and the rest of the design team to say, “how do we meet our minimum targets and, not just that, but how do we get there most effectively?
Kirsten Nielsen
It sounds exciting when you have the tools and the expertise together in the service of our clients and sustainable design. Mike, I'll end with you. What do you see happening soon in our sustainability practice, where do you see it going?
Mike Hassaballa
I expect that there will be a lot of action on the ground, from building the carbonization projects ‒ and we will move from the stage of just talking about the projects with the clients and to actually implementing them ‒ building these projects, retrofitting these old buildings. The word of caution for people who are thinking about this now: please take action, because for latecomers, I expect there will not be a lot of time left to achieve their goals, which means for us that the project will be much more fast-paced, which puts a lot of pressure on the industry as a whole because for those who waited, there will be only a couple of years, three years left to get projects done to achieve their goals. So, I'll end there, but that's what I'm expecting in the future.
Kirsten Nielsen
Bright horizon! Gentlemen, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your expertise in sustainable engineering. This is a design approach that we actively engage in and promote. So, I'm sure we'll have a lot more to talk about around decarbonization and electrification on an ongoing basis. Our guests today have been Nick Stark, Philip Schuyler and Mike Hassaballa from HH Angus.
If you are interested in speaking to any of our experts about decarbonization of new or built facilities, you can reach us anytime by sending an e-mail to lowcarbon@hhangus.com. Again, that's lowcarbon@hhangus.com.
Thank you for joining us today. I'm Kirsten Nielsen. We look forward to connecting with you again on our next podcast here on Expanding the Possible. Have a great day!