In 2025, the City of Vancouver engaged SES Consulting to undertake a study to understand the on-site barriers associated with replacing gas-fired equipment with high-efficiency electric equipment. The outcomes of the study were intended to inform the development of equipment efficiency regulations; considerations with respect to exemptions; and building owner support, incentive, and rebate programs to facilitate electrification.

SES and its partners developed low-carbon retrofit designs for a representative set of 18 commercial buildings located in the lower mainland. Replacement equipment was selected and sized based on the existing electrical service, packaged solutions were prioritized where feasible, heat pump technologies were used where possible, and heat recovery was included when applicable.

A multidisciplinary engineering team consisting of SES, AES (Electrical) and RDH (Structural) then used existing information supplemented by site visits to assess the feasibility of each retrofit and estimates project costs, along with financial and energy performance. (Image courtesy of Bill Badzo)

The Cariboo Memorial Hospital is a four-story hospital owned by Interior Health located in Williams Lake, British Columbia. The 15,825 m2 building contains a diverse range of facilities including: an emergency room, an intensive care unit, ambulatory care, operating rooms, cardiology, surgical daycare, medical device reprocessing, post-anesthesia recovery, maternity, carpentry, shipping, kitchen, and cafeteria.  

Because of the unique operating requirements of a commercial kitchen within a healthcare facility, the ventilation supply fan (SF-5) and exhaust fan (EF-5) were initially running continuously.   

SES undertook a detailed investigation of the hospital’s HVAC systems and associated controls per the requirements of BC Hydro’s Continuous Optimization Program. The investigation identified that the 100% outdoor air kitchen ventilation system was operating continuously at 100% speed to condition the air in the kitchen, cafeteria, and food prep areas. It also found that the exhaust hood temperature sensor was consistently reading above 40°C, even after hours. 

The implementation phase of the project involved recommissioning the ventilation system with “occupied” and “unoccupied” modes that included the following control strategies and features: 

• The existing exhaust hood temperature sensor was replaced, and the new sensor’s readings were verified for accuracy
• Carbon monoxide and methane gas detection devices were installed in the kitchen space and connected to the building automation system as a safety precaution
• A space pressurization sensor was installed in the kitchen to monitor the supply and exhaust fan speeds to maintain negative pressure in the kitchen
• Three new occupancy sensors were installed to monitor occupancy after hours
• An “occupied” mode was created and scheduled from 5:30am to 7:30pm. During this time, the exhaust fan runs at 100%, and the supply fan at 75%, to keep the kitchen’s air pressure slightly negative when it is in use, ensuring that cooking odors remain with the kitchen
• After hours, the system enters “unoccupied” mode: supply and exhaust fans are disabled, except under the following conditions:

1. Occupancy is detected by the new occupancy sensors
2. The exhaust hood canopy temperature rises above setpoint
3. Natural gas or carbon monoxide levels rise above threshold alarm setpoint
4. Room pressure drifts too far from neutral range
5. Freeze protection is required

If any of these conditions are triggered, then the system will engage automatically.

The Atrium Building, a 7-story office building owned by Jawl Properties and located in Victoria, British Columbia, was built in 2010 with a Modular Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) – one of the first implemented at this scale in British Columbia. As the system neared the end of its life, Jawl’s operation team identified an opportunity to learn from their experience with the original unit to inform the project to replace it. The original system had functioned reasonably well during the heating season but struggled to provide adequate cooling capacity during the summer. Jawl wanted to ensure the new system would be reliable, trouble free, and improve tenant comfort year-round.

Jawl initiated the project by talking to their primary HVAC provider, who was familiar with the system and the building, to identify specific aspects of system performance that needed to be improved. Next, they brought in a consultant to lead a collaborative process to design the new system. An initial feasibility study identified some issues with the flow rates between the ASHP and the primary mechanical plant, and some capacity challenges stemming from load requirements and space usages that changed from the original design of the building. The study identified several options, including heat recovery and a dedicated high effciency chiller for summer cooling, for consideration; its results justified inclusion of both items in the new system, with incentives from BC Hydro.

Several years of building and performance data helped inform the design of the new system. In addition to replacing the mechanical equipment, implementing the new system required replacing a fair amount of the piping and the primary pumps in the building, and the addition of new heating and chilled water buffer tanks.

Arthur Erikson Place is an iconic 26-story office building co-owned by KingSett Capital, Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd. (in joint venture with Vestcor Inc.), and Reliance Properties Ltd., located in downtown Vancouver. 

Prior to the project to retrofits its domestic hot water (DHW) system, hot water in the building was generated by different gas-fired boilers depending on the season. In the heating season, two large 3,077 MW (10,500 MBtu/hr) gas-fired boilers, dating from the original construction, were used for DHW production and also provided hot water for hydronic space heating. These large boilers were turned off during the cooling season and three smaller gas-fired boilers, ranging from 88 MW (300 MBtu/hr) to 147 MW (500 MBtu/hr), were used instead. One of these three smaller boilers provided DHW for the tower while the other two were dedicated to the fitness centre change rooms. The DHW was stored in two large 1,325 L (350 US gallon) storage tanks, both original to the building. 

The copper risers, running vertically through two mechanical shafts beside the elevator shaft, were also original to the building and had begun to leak on occasion. This signaled to Colliers that the risers were approaching the end of their long service life and required replacement.

Each year, Kingsett Capital, one of the building owners, holds an Innovation in Sustainability competition for projects at their managed properties.  For the 2020 competition, Kingsett indicated that they were particularly interested in seeing submissions focused on technologies that were cutting-edge, had not yet scaled up to mass adoption, or were new to the Canadian or North American market.  The award prize was a $50,000 contribution towards the winning project. 

For its submission to the competition, Colliers proposed to combine the planned replacement of the aging risers with the electrification of the tower’s DHW system to significantly reduce the building’s GHG emissions. The electrification project would include decoupling the large boilers from the DHW systems, replacing the boiler serving the tower with two sets of all-electric, CO2-based heat pumps for year-round DHW generation, and installing new DHW storage tanks. Electrification of the DHW system for the change rooms was not part of the proposal because the two boilers for this system were less than ten years old.

The project won the internal competition and was approved for some additional funding from the CleanBC Better Buildings program, and Colliers was tasked with implementing it.

Since 2014, SES Consulting has led the design and implementation of BMS upgrades for over 30 Telus Central Office sites across BC, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, as part of Telus’ program to update their critical infrastructure.   

The scope of these projects includes engineering, oversight of installation work, as well as testing and commissioning of a new Building Management System (BMS) in each facility. For each project, the new BMS is designed to capture all existing alarm points, monitoring and control, and reporting functions. Additionally, AC Power, HVAC points and alarms and other miscellaneous additions are also captured. New sequences of operation were designed to incorporate best practices in energy efficiency while balancing Telus’ unique operational requirements, including principles in accordance with ASHRAE Guideline 36, where applicable.  Present and future requirements were considered to help to reduce the impact on future build requirements and cost of managing the infrastructure network. 

This work directly informed and assisted with the creation of a Telus BMS Standard which sets the minimum requirements for BMS systems across all Telus facilities.   

A summary of scope of work for these upgrade projects is provided below:  

• Integration of all HVAC units to the BMS for status and control
• Tie in of all in-scope IP enabled devices (e.g. BMS controllers, meters etc.)
• Installation of inverters
• Tie in of all new BMS controllers to protected inverted power
• Tie in of the entire BMS to an existing head-end VM server running the BMS software
• Tie in, enablement, and verification of selected dry contact alarms to the alarm collection devices
• Configuration, enablement, and verification of email alarms to TELUS
• Utilize the Good Automated Manufacturing Practices (GAMP) methodology for Installation and Operational Qualification consistent with TELUS Standards for such work
• Enhanced commissioning process including full performance and failsafe testing   

Challenges and Key Learnings

These control systems operate cooling for critical telecommunications infrastructure and must therefore be designed to the highest quality. This extensive experience has allowed SES to further enhance the quality of our BMS upgrade projects, and develop effective and modern templates for this scope of work.

In July 2021, SES (and our partners Modern Niagara and AES Engineering) were contracted to complete a combined BC Hydro Low Carbon Electrification / Fortis BC Custom Study of the 4,000,000 ft2 airport terminal building in Richmond, BC.   

The objective of this study was to support YVR in building a Net Zero Carbon Roadmap with the best technology options possible for this facility.  SES completed this work in two stages, focusing first on energy efficiency solutions in Study #1, and second on the large capital projects in Study#2.  These studies created a vision for a 93% reduction in natural gas consumption with 8 different energy efficiency measures that have an overall Positive Net Present Value, and an Incremental Payback of 11 years.  

The study focused on the following Energy Efficiency Measures: 

• Replacement of DHW Heating Plants with Air Source CO2 Heat Pumps
• Advanced Controls Technology (including video-based occupancy counters, automated demand response, and many other strategies)
• Implementation of Variable Volume Air and Pumping Retrofits throughout the facility.
• Low Temperature Conversion of all hydronic terminal heating systems. 
• Installation of 4 new Heat Recovery Chillers. 
• Completion of a large Closed Loop Ground Source Heat Pump System. 
• Addition of Heat Recovery Sources within YVR (Exhaust Air, Electrical and Server Rooms, and Sewer Sources).
• Installation of new Condensing Boilers for backup heating with Renewable Natural Gas.

In December 2020, SES was contracted to complete a BC Hydro Low Carbon Electrification (LCE) Study of this huge 800,000 ft2 facility in downtown Vancouver.   

The objective of this study was to evaluate various high efficiency electrification opportunities to significantly reduce energy and GHG emissions from this landmark Arthur Erickson designed civic centre and public plaza, that houses the Provincial Law Courts and UBC’s downtown campus. The study focused on various heat recovery opportunities from chillers, exhaust air, ice rink and sewage sources, as well as replacing domestic water heating systems with fully electric devices. The LCE study successfully defined a vision to eliminate 95% of current natural gas use, while implementing solutions with a positive Net Present Value and a 14-year payback after incentives and demand response control strategies were factored in.  

In 2020, the North Shore municipalities (District of North Vancouver, City of North Vancouver, District of West Vancouver) determined that, as with most urban municipalities, their largest source of community GHG emissions was buildings – specifically, emissions generated by gas-powered space equipment in single family homes.

Understanding that their best tool for reducing emissions from private buildings was to incentivize owners to switch to electrical heating systems, the municipalities offered generous top-up rebates to spur demand. However, they continued to see low uptake of residential heat pumps on the North Shore.

Interviews with local stakeholders and initial research identified additional barriers to residential heat pump uptake in the region beyond the incremental capital costs their rebates were aimed at addressing. These included a lack of knowledge about heat pumps among homeowners, and limited interest and capacity to install them among local contractors.

To address these barriers, the north shore municipalities contracted SES Consulting to design and deliver an industry capacity-building initiative and consumer education campaign.

To distinguish the initiative in a saturated media landscape, SES worked with long-time collaborator Flipside Creative to develop a brand and visual identify for the campaign. This included a story-telling format along with key messages tailored to campaign audiences.

The SES Consulting team compiled a database of HVAC contractors servicing the North Shore communities and surveyed contractors to identify interest in training opportunities, knowledge of heat pump rebates, and common challenges experienced in heat pump retrofit projects.

Based on preliminary interviews with and outreach to HVAC contractors servicing the north shore, SES developed and delivered a webinar to address common questions, review opportunities and resources, and direct participants to existing training opportunities.

On the homeowner front, SES Consulting staff developed a consumer awareness campaign to increase understanding of heat pumps and drive heat pump rebate registrations and installations. This included a social media campaign which was delivered by the municipality’s communications teams; key messages about the climate, health, and comfort benefits of heat pumps; and educational resources and events aimed at increasing awareness and addressing common questions and barriers.

SES completed Energy Studies for 15 buildings on the University of Calgary main campus – over 3.5M square feet of campus buildings including administration, teaching, research, and recreation facilities.     The scope of work included Measurement and Verification, employee engagement initiatives, as well as developing a strategic 5-year energy plan to implement several energy conservation measures over 3 phases.  

This project demonstrates our ability to design a comprehensive program including both engineering, engagement, and training components, and deliver on aggressive schedules. 

Coquitlam Centre is a shopping mall owned by Morguard property management located in the City of Coquitlam that houses 200 stores, a food court, and administrative offices. Constructed in 1979, the north section of the mall was expanded 17 years ago and new chillers, gas boilers, and controls were installed. The two-level shopping centre stretches over 1 million sq ft and an average of 34,000 people visit the mall each day. In the mall, heating is only supplied to the common areas, such as the corridors and hallways; shops are heated by their lights and residual heat from the common areas. Exterior shops that don’t benefit from the building’s residual heat have their own rooftop gas heaters that tenants control and pay for themselves. A hot water loop runs through seven rooftop air handling units (AHUs) which also supply cooling to the common areas.

In 2014, given the facility’s substantial cooling load, Morguard’s property management team was looking to save energy costs and improve operations. Because of the heat produced by lighting and occupant load in the shops, the facility requires both year-round space cooling and heating for ventilation systems. The contractor and consultant worked together to propose a heat recovery chiller (HRC) which would reject waste energy into the facility’s existing water heating systems instead of its cooling towers.

The mall’s original plant had a constant volume hot water tank fed by two 6 million BTU gas boilers. This hot water was supplied at 40°C (104°F) and 60°C (140°F) to the two heating systems which operate in the old and new sections of the mall, respectively. Since the old mall runs at 40°C, it previously ran on a heat exchanger to keep the temperatures lower. The new HRC project re-piped the heating supply system to run in series: water heater 60°C goes to the loads of the new mall first, and cooler return water is then mixed as needed and supplied at 40°C to the old mall. 

This piping redesign allowed the existing heat exchanger to be removed. All distribution pumps were switched from constant flow to variable flow to pump only the water which is needed. The HRC intercepts the return water from the mall and reheats it before it enters the boiler. Post-retrofit, the entire mall can be heated solely by the heat recovery chiller down to 2°C outside temperature, after which the boilers turn on to top-up the heat in the system. The scope of the project also included replacing leaking AHU coil valves, as well as the addition of speed drives on major heat pumps.