As a UBC student with experience in writing but no knowledge of engineering, I was selected as the ideal person to speak to a broader public about the Living Lab and ECE’s thermo-electric smart grid project.
I was only vaguely aware of UBC’s Living Lab initiative and its relationship to campus sustainability. To be honest, I have never really cared about sustainability. Other issues, like child abuse or religious persecution, simply feel more urgent and important to me. I am aware that the sustainability problem is one that will impact the entire planet, but at some distant point in the future. Also, while it is easy for me to relate to causes like cancer research, I find it difficult to connect with the sustainability issue on a personal level. I remain uncertain as to whether the world can get better, or that any research in the area can make a significant positive impact. Perhaps this cynicism actually makes me an ideal sample of my generation.
During this interview and the research leading up to it I learned that the Living Lab is, to be crude, a big deal. The Living Lab uses the university’s operational resources to enhance its teaching and research. Put more simply, the idea of the Living Lab is that the university’s people—its educators, staff and students—create what the university needs.
ECE’s contribution to the Living Lab is the Smart Grid project. At the rate the university is expanding, its current electrical system will not be able to provide the energy the campus needs. Also, the current system does not use energy efficiently, resulting in a large amount of waste. ECE’s project is to create a Smart Grid, which will optimize energy use on campus to make it more efficient.
In line with my general skepticism, I was unconvinced by what I read about the Smart Grid. It seems too daunting a task to be able to optimize the electricity use of in all the buildings on campus. I also learned that buildings at UBC are not properly monitored. So although the university pays a huge electricity bill, there is no way to know which building consumes what amount of energy. Thinking about the complexity of the problem and the vastness of the UBC campus makes me doubt that these issues can be solved, and if they can be solved quickly enough to make a difference.
So in the midst of my skepticism, I interviewed Dr. Andre Ivanov, ECE’s Department Head.
In Hye: The Living Lab initiative is described as a platform for collaboration between the different departments of the university, as well as industry partners. To what extent is that reflected in this Smart Grid project?
Andre: First of all, there is implicit collaboration in the Living Lab initiative under the umbrella of the university’s sustainability agenda. Every time there’s a conversation about which direction the project should go, we consider how it fits into the sustainability goals and targets of the university. Having common goals make it easier for different departments to collaborate, since it provides a clear strategic focus.
The Living Lab makes it to easier to facilitate collaborations with the infrastructure of the university, as well as with industry partners. In particular, the Smart Grid project involves the Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC), Plant Operations, Building Operations, the Vice President Research’s Office, the Sauder School of Business, Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) and the University-Industry Liaison Office and more (Properties Trust, VP Academic, SCARP, SALA) . On the industry side, we have partnered ourselves with Alpha Technologies, Cisco Systems, and Honeywell and many other organizations, big, small, local and multinational.
In Hye: Going back to the sustainability agenda, the university’s Strategic Plan describes UBC as a “global sustainability leader”. But as a student, it can be difficult to picture a “green” campus when the campus is constantly undergoing construction. How does the construction factor into the overall sustainability agenda?
Andre: UBC is in the process of replacing the steam heating system to the hot water heating system, which is more efficient and will create less waste. This is another step the university is taking to transition to a smarter energy grid. The next step is to start monitoring the buildings’ energy use, since many buildings are not metered. Currently we don’t know how much energy our buildings are using. Once the buildings are properly metered, there will be greater transparency about each building’s individual energy use. We can use this knowledge to allot energy more effectively.
In Hye: Besides the lack of proper monitoring, what other problems does the current system have?
Andre: The current grid is not smart. All generated energy is sent out into the world, whether or not it is used, resulting in waste. If demand is lower than anticipated, energy is simply lost, because there is no mechanism to store it. There is no real feedback between the actual consumers to those who are controlling the energy production.
In Hye: How does the Smart Grid fix these problems?
Andre: It enables the efficient use of energy. The idea is to progress toward being able to use energy in a very precise and optimal way, with no waste and the minimal amount that is needed. Unlike the current system, the Smart Grid will have a storage system, so that energy is not wasted and can be stored for future use.
In Hye: But how precise, how optimal can the Smart Grid be, with respect to such a large campus?
Andre: With this Smart Grid project, we are discovering our own limits. At UBC, there are fifty thousand students, ten thousand staff members, as well as visitors. Every single individual has interactions with the walls, screens, and lights on campus, which adds up to billions of possible interactions. The ultimate Smart Grid is one where every single one of those interactions will be optimized, so that energy will not be wasted.
In Hye: To be honest, that seems quite daunting. I’m not sure if I believe that it could ever be achieved.
Andre: I would say that this project is not about moving towards a specific goal. The Smart Grid is a moving target. While we will never reach the ultimate Smart Grid, we can take significant steps toward facilitating interactions that will be better than they currently are.
In Hye: What gives you the confidence to even say that significant changes can be made?
Andre: Well, for example, in my industry, the chip industry, we’ve been able to achieve things that we would have never thought possible ten or twenty years ago. As a community of engineers and researchers, that gives us confidence that significant change in the future is possible, since we’ve seen it happen in the past. As a community, we have a track record of having made things happen.
In Hye: Okay, but then what gives you the confidence on the sustainability issue specifically?
Andre: I was recently in Trois Rivieres, at a centre for Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada. The centre researches hydrogen as a clean energy source to power electrical vehicles. Technology is ready, but the market is not enabling those technologies to become mainstream, because electricity is so cheap. What is really needed is a change in regulations and policies. Technology is ready, but it is people and markets who need to change.
In light of what Andre said to me, I think that “Smarter Grid” is a more fitting name than “Smart Grid”. Ultimately we will never create the perfect Smart Grid, not because the system is too dauntingly complex, but because technology always advances, allowing for continuous improvement and optimization. Despite my skepticism, I support the idea of working towards continuous improvement, as opposed to having a predetermined, idealized goal. A series of “Smarter Grids” rather than a perfect Smart Grid is an optimistic, yet realistic goal that even a skeptic can approve of.