As an engineering consulting firm that performs energy audits, our job is to help our clients understand how their building uses energy and steps they can take to improve their energy consumption. It is important to be able to convey our findings to our clients in ways that are accessible for them. We are ultimately

At the beginning of this year, the first compliance period of the Ontario cap and trade program began. The cap and trade program is designed to encourage the reduction of carbon emissions in the province and meet percent reductions of carbon emissions mandated by the Federal Government of Canada. For most, the additional costs of

The title “Project Manager” is used frequently across the Engineering disciplines.  Unlike a Professional Engineering licence, the title is an un-regulated one and most anyone can assume the role.  In light of this the Project Management Institute (PMI) aims to set a high standard with its Project Management Professional (PMP) designation.  The requirements are difficult

Global Adjustment In 2005, the Ontario government established a line item on electricity bills called Global Adjustment (GA).  The intent of GA was to account for differences in the Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) and the contracted electricity rates that the Ontario government pays to third party contracts through Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Independent Electricity

I have recently been involved in a pool dehumidification project to size and select a new dehumidification unit for a pool in the Toronto area. It was a small indoor pool, around 1000 SFT in size, used by tenants for recreational purposes. The Pool house was built above ground with lots of glass walls and

Thermo-electric refrigerators (figure 7) due to their high cost and low efficiency are far less commonly used then vapor compression or gas cycle. However they do have their advantages, the adaptability and lack of moving parts/circulating fluid make it ideal for small lightweight applications. As well as applications where leaks of a vapor compression unit

The most important part of any project is the beginning steps, and energy conservation projects are no different.  It is very important that the first steps taken…often an energy audit…are performed correctly to thoroughly and accurately uncover energy conservation measures. An energy conservation project can be divided into the following 5 stages. Each stage has

The summer 2016 issue of Facility Forum featured an in-depth arena lighting article penned by our in-house lighting expert Christie Martin. The article appears below as an excerpt from the magazine orginally published by the Ontario Recreation facilities Association and the current issue can be found here.

Interval meters are devices that are installed in a building to log and monitor real time energy consumption in intervals of set time increments. These meters are typically found in larger commercial and industrial facilities, most of whom are large consumers of energy. Interval meters are used to determine electricity consumption of the building and

Many of Efficiency Engineering’s clients contact us from time-to-time to comment on the validity of claims from product vendors.  It is our experience that vendors of products with questionable energy conservation claims tend to approach building owners/managers directly instead of approaching engineering firms. Some products that we review very quickly fall into the “not a