Pavani Perera Green Energy Challenge 2019

Throwback to the Fall 2019 Green Energy Challenge Workshops

Last fall, the CECA U of T executive team wanted to improve our recruiting efforts for the 2020 Green Energy Challenge competition. We wanted to provide new student members with an opportunity to learn about what each subteam has to offer so that they can find where their interests fit into this competition. With that goal in mind, we held a series of interactive workshops for each of the four technical subteams in this competition: building energy performance, solar, project management, and lighting.

Building Energy Performance Workshop

The series started with the building energy performance workshop that introduced basic concepts of building science with a focus on the function of walls. We began by looking at heat, moisture, and air leakage as the main problem areas for a building that can lead to wasted energy, high energy costs, and discomfort for people inside. The students were then challenged to apply this knowledge to improve wall sections or to create their own given indoor and outdoor conditions. For these activities, we used our very own building science trading cards (some of which are shown below) to depict different materials in the walls and even got to borrow some real samples from our building science professors.

Overall, this workshop gave new students a fundamental understanding of building envelopes and got them familiar with strategies used to improve energy usage in a facility. This experience is quite useful now for these students as they work on designing building energy retrofits for the competition.

Solar Workshop

The series continued with the solar workshop, for which we collaborated with the University of Toronto Sustainability Office to organize a tour of the solar panel system at the University’s Exam Centre at 255 McCaul Street.

This solar panel system has been running since late 2016. It produces about 75,000 kWh a year, which is 7.5 times the energy need of a typical home in Toronto! The system is directly helping to offset the electricity needs of the facility everyday, with Toronto Hydro supplementing any extra needs (such as on cloudy days). The panels will continue to function for over 30 years, while the electrical equipment would need to be replaced in about a decade. This project is one of the many happening across the University of Toronto as the campus works hard to achieve its Low-Carbon Action Plan.

Paul Leitch from the University’s Sustainability Office gave us interesting details about how this solar panel system functions and how they address challenges on site.

It was fascinating to hear about how this system has such lasting benefits on the facility and on the campus as a whole. It also gave our solar team a clear idea of the different components of a real system and the importance of incorporating safety considerations into the system design to facilitate setup and maintenance. We really appreciate the University of Toronto’s Sustainability Office hosting this awesome tour!

Project Management Workshop

Next, we held the project management workshop, in which students were given a theoretical energy retrofits project and challenged to create a Gantt chart project schedule with a financing plan. It gave them hands-on experience with organizing tasks in a way that makes efficient use of available resources and got them more familiar with financing tools for such types of projects. This definitely prepared them to apply basic project management tools for the competition.

Lighting Workshop

The series ended with the lighting workshop, in which students did a short lighting audit in the University’s Goldcorp Mining Innovation Suite. The students collected and illustrated data on the intensity of lighting in this studio space using an app that provides lux readings. They were then introduced to how lighting in such a space would be modelled using Autodesk Revit, providing them with great insight into the overall work of this subteam.

Reflecting on the Workshops

All in all, the executive team was very pleased with this series of workshops. It allowed us to spread awareness of the Green Energy Challenge and of CECA U of T within different engineering disciplines as well as other programs, such as mathematics and architecture. With each interactive workshop, new members got a better idea of how they could contribute to the competition while exploring their passions and developing their skills. This allowed us to recruit a team of enthusiastic and committed new members for this year. We hope to continue building on these successful initiatives to give every new member a meaningful experience within our growing club.

Pavani Perera Green Energy Challenge 2020

2020 Green Energy Challenge Audit at Orde Street Junior Public School

Welcome back everyone! As we wrote in our previous blog, for this year’s Green Energy Challenge (GEC) competition, we are working with Orde Street Junior Public School in downtown Toronto to create a proposal with net-zero energy retrofits as well as volunteer our time to give back to their community.

What is an Energy Audit?

An energy audit is done at a facility to analyze the flow of energy and find opportunities to reduce energy input without reducing the facility’s ability to meet energy demands. It gives insight into how the building can save energy and be more energy efficient, which saves a lot of utility costs and environmental damage.

Orde Street Junior Public School kindly hosted us for our energy audit last month. Our team split up into small groups and gathered information on lighting, solar, building envelope, plug loads, and HVAC systems from the three floors of the school.

Lighting

Our lighting team inspected natural and artificial lighting in each room, hallway, and staircase of the school. Some of the data they were interested in was different lighting types, wattage, and the lighting layout. Also, lux readings were taken using a cell phone app to figure out lighting luminance at different distances from light sources. With this information, the team can calculate how intense lighting in each area is and figure out possible ways to save energy, improve efficiency, and enhance the user experience.

Solar

With the help of the facilities managers at the school, the solar team was able to get access to the structural blueprints of the roof. We could not do site visits to the roof, but these drawings are helpful in assessing the solar potential of the school and designing a roof mounted solar PV system.

Building Energy

Our building energy team noted different types of windows and doors in each room and if they sensed any heat leakage. Additionally, the model number and energy consumption of the air conditioners in each room were noted, which would help us to come up with innovative ways to cool the building. To gather plug loads data, the team recorded the energy consumption and user habits for any devices or equipment that use electricity. We are working with the school to get information on the mechanical system, since we cannot go inside due to safety reasons. With the mechanical systems, we would be interested in thermal efficiency, standby losses, recovery rates, floor ventilation systems, and the functioning of the radiators.

Looking Ahead

Since the energy audit, our team has been busy analyzing the gathered data to design improvements to decrease the energy consumption in the building. These improvements can range from efficient lighting and appliances to better insulation that reduces heating demand. In addition, we will design a solar PV system that will generate enough energy to offset the consumption by the building through the years. In the meantime, our community engagement team is coordinating with Orde Street Junior Public School to create a campaign focused on sustainable buildings and healthy living. Stay tuned for future blogs on the GEC!

Pavani Perera Community Learning

2020 Sustainable Building Design Case Competition

Hello readers!

Welcome to our first post on our new website! We, at CECA U of T, were excited to host our 3rd annual Sustainable Building Design Case Competition this past week. Through this competition, we challenge student teams to prepare and present a short proposal to a panel of judges on how a community service facility in Toronto can save energy.

  • For our case competition, we were joined by industry judges as well as faculty to analyze the proposals of our Civil Engineering student participants.

We chose the Christie Refugee Welcome Centre (CRWC) in downtown Toronto as the client facility. CRWC supports refugee families arriving in Canada with meals, lodging, activities, and programs as they transition into their new lives. Our team has worked with CRWC for the 2018 ELECTRI International/NECA Green Energy Challenge, in which we created a proposal over an entire semester on net zero energy retrofits. You can check that out here.

For the students participating in the case competition this year, we provided information on energy use, lighting, plug loads, and HVAC from CRWC. Throughout the week, participants were hard at work creating innovative solutions to reduce 60% of CRWC’s energy use, along with strategies on spreading awareness of energy efficient buildings.

The participants included Jiating (Chelsa) Lou (Civil Engineering, 2nd year); Ziyi (Jason) Wang (Civil Engineering, 2nd year); Paul Go (Civil Engineering, 4th year); and Bo Zhao (Civil Engineering, 1st year). They did an incredible job of going beyond the provided resources with research of their own to come up with creative solutions. Some of these included a heat recovery ventilator, smart power strips with digital timers, and electric furnaces. They also integrated community engagement strategies into their technical solutions, which included collaboration through various social media platforms and interactive children’s games, to promote the value of these retrofits.

  • The case competition participants from U of T Civil Engineering included from L to R: Bo Zhao, Paul Go, Ziyi (Jason) Wang, and Jiating (Chelsa) Lou.

The panel of judges included U of T Professor Brenda McCabe (faculty advisor); U of T Professor Ian Sinclair; Greg Peniuk (IESO, also CECA U of T alumni); and Gregg Whitty (CECA). They gave the participants constructive feedback on improving their analysis of building energy retrofits and presentation skills. Also, they emphasized the importance of educating end users on how these buildings function.

The teams presented their proposals on innovative ways in which CRWC can reduce 60% of its energy use to a panel of judges.

Congratulations to all the participants! We were quite impressed with the quality of your proposals, and we can’t wait to see what you achieve through future competitions. It’s awesome to see how stimulating challenges like this open up new doors for you to explore your passions.

Also, we’d like to thank the judges for dedicating their time to join us. Through the continuous support of our faculty, alumni, and industry partners, we get opportunities like this to learn more about the contracting and building energy industry, expand our networks, and develop as young professionals. This experience will no doubt be invaluable when we begin our careers outside of university.

With the Sustainable Building Design Case Competition wrapped up, our team is looking ahead to the 2020 ELECTRI International/NECA Green Energy Challenge. We are planning to partner with a school in the Toronto District School Board for this year’s net zero energy retrofit proposal, and we are determined to improve on our second place finish from last year with new members on board! Stay tuned for our upcoming blogs on the Green Energy Challenge journey and our new team initiatives.