Tag: Sunnybrook

Is your facility and its electrical infrastructure prepared?

As electric vehicles (EVs) become more prevalent, they present a challenge for institutional-type facilities that have significant on-site parking, in terms of how to address the charging requirements of EV owners. Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC) is one such facility. With a three million ft2 campus and 4,535 parking spots, vehicular traffic exceeds 10,000 cars per day.

In 2018, SHSC was experiencing power outages in parking lots due to EV owners using adapters and extension cords to charge their vehicles from housekeeping receptacles. Recognizing the growing demand for on-site charging and wishing to promote green initiatives, SHSC investigated available incentive programs for an EV charging project.

HH Angus was engaged to assist SHSC in delivering this project. The first decision was to identify the type and number of charging stations that would best meet the needs within the established budget. One of the first decisions was which charging level to provide of the three levels available. Level 2 was selected, offering a full charge in four to six hours.

Key considerations for the supply of EV charging stations included physical construction and design features (for example, retractable charging cords were an important feature); service agreements; built-in wireless connectivity; and warranty coverage. It was also necessary to address the increased electrical load for the parking lots through power distribution upgrades and modifications to existing switchgear.

An important decision with direct impact on the installation design was the selection of dual-head EV charging stations, which allow two adjacent vehicles to be serviced by a single charging station. SHSC eventually installed 20 dedicated EV charging stations.

The entire project was successfully completed in approximately four months. By undertaking the necessary project planning, institutional facilities can help ensure their parking areas are ready to meet the requirements of EV owners and further support of green initiatives.

Read the full article in MRO Magazine August 12, 2019  

 

Authors :

Philip Chow, P.Eng., P.E., was the lead engineer on the project and is a senior project manager at H.H. Angus & Associates Ltd. He specializes in electrical projects and construction in critical facilities and can be reached at philip.chow@hhangus.com.

Bavan Poologarajah,EIT., was the senior electrical designer on the project and worked on the project from initial concept design to final commissioning. Bavan has worked on a number of electrical projects in critical facilities and can be reached at Bavan.Poologarajah@hhangus.com.

Hospital Substation Gas-insulated Switchgear

Located in Toronto, ON, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is a full-service hospital with over 1,300 beds, making it the largest regional trauma centre in Canada. Through its partnership with Veterans Affairs Canada, it is home to more than 500 veterans. With a main campus of approximately three million square feet, Sunnybrook is redeveloping its existing main outdoor electrical substation in its entirety. The project incorporates several innovative features, including using 38 kilovolt class gas-insulated switchgear, new power transformers with increased capacity, and multiple civil upgrades. In addition to a decreased footprint and reduced maintenance requirements, the new switchgear interfaces with a networkbased monitoring and control system. In this photo, the switchgear undergoes indepth factory acceptance testing in Frankfurt, Germany.

Sunnybrook team: Michael McRitchie, Francis Jesuthasan. Prime consultant, H.H. Angus & Associates Ltd.: Philip Chow, P.Eng.

Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

In fall 2017, Cellula Robotics Ltd. successfully demonstrated its Imotus-1 Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. During a week of testing at a local pool facility, Imotus-1 navigated using proprietary Simultaneous  Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms and was shown to hold station, waypoint track, manoeuvre around obstacles, and dock to an underwater charging station. The docking demonstration was sponsored by Ocean Networks Canada; development of SLAM was made possible through funding from the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program. In 2018, Imotus-1 will be used by Cellula in the North Sea for commercial survey and inspection work inside the structural legs of an offshore platform.

Eric (James) Jackson, P.Eng., Melanie Devaux, P.Eng., Paul Prunianu, P.Eng., Dr. Peter Hampton, EIT, Dana Leslie, EIT, Jacqueline Nichols, P.Eng.

Novel Polystyrene Recovery System

A.H. Lundberg Systems Limited of Vancouver designed and supplied a modular distillation system for Polystyvert for its polystyrene (Styrofoam) recycling demonstration plant in Montreal. In a novel patented process, an essential oil is used to dissolve the polystyrene at the user site, thereby drastically reducing the volume and subsequent transport costs to the recycling plant. Following recovery of the polystyrene using a liquid hydrocarbon, the distillation system separates and recovers the essential oil and hydrocarbon for reuse in the process. The module was fabricated and assembled by Acier St-Michel in Laval, QC. The plant is scheduled for commissioning in May 2018.

Allan Jensen, P.Eng., Bruce Der, P.Eng., Alex Lisnevskiy, P.Eng.

Published in Innovation Magazine 
Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia
May/June 2018