Hello. I'm Ragui Barsoum, Reg for short. I have some 30-plus years' experience in the building automation industry. I worked on computerized control systems first introduced to Canada in the 1980s. Back then computers were mainframe computer systems with punch cards.
I wanted to give you a short rundown on my opinion of things that, from my experience, are key to effective building retrofits on existing buildings. Number one, I think we need a holistic approach to equipment replacement versus the present-day habit of replacing equipment one to one, even if it's more efficient equipment. I've seen a lot of 50-year-old boilers. They're built to last, obviously, but one should not replace a 50-year-old boiler with a newer, higher efficiency one, without having a wider look at how the other components in this 50-year-old building would behave.
Particularly for buildings with 50,000 square feet plus, it's my opinion that the extra cost to have this more in-depth look would result in significant gains and I think that it's part of what the CaGBC report was talking about when it's talking about deeper retrofits.
Number two, I think we need to focus on utilizing the people who work on site. I think many people already do that. They obviously have day-to-day knowledge and can ID the weak points. They may not know the solutions, but that's an excellent starting point.
Number three, there are all sorts of products that can save energy, but many are quite complex to operate and don't lend themselves well to a harmonized building. Lack of harmonization, in my opinion, is the most common problem. That's the one I see the most.
The fourth item that I have is more of a complaint rather than a recommendation. It's that the current standard for energy benchmarking is to compare building performance based on type of occupancy, size, location and a couple of other things, but there is not a way to compare types of building systems or operating strategies. I think that's a weakness in the benchmarking system and I think it's an opportunity for future improvement.
Thank you.