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The Building Services Division of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE-BS) and the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering - Hong Kong Branch (CIPHE-HKB) co-organised a technical webinar on the captioned topic on
19 January 2021 via Zoom.
Ms Chan Oi-ming, an engineer from the Water Supplies Department of the HKSAR Government, was invited to introduce the enhancement measures for Water Supplies Submission (Simple Cases).
The webinar commenced with the brief introduction on the basic principle and procedures for processing applications for water supply. Ms Chan elaborated on the procedures in enhancing the completeness of submission documents for water supplies and submission requirements for various types of application at different stages.
To streamline and accelerate the application process, Ms Chan further introduced the electronic submission for simple cases of application for water supplies such as the new application for food businesses, beauty shops, and laundries. She also provided participants with an updated summary of the new version of “Technical Requirements for Plumbing Works in Buildings”.
This updated document consolidated the technical submission requirements set out in previous versions of the Hong Kong Waterworks Standard Requirements for Plumbing Installation”, the “Handbook on Plumbing Installation” as well as the Circular Letters.
Ms Chan further elaborated on major updates on the technical requirements and guidebook for various aspects such as requirement in metering, pipe length and the submission requirements for vertical plumbing line diagram.
The presentation was very informative and ended with a fruitful question-and-answer session. On behalf of the Organising Committee, we would like to express our sincere thanks to Ms Chan for her valuable time and effort in conducting such an informative talk and sharing the latest updates in the aspects of statutory submission.
Dr Pan Lee, Assistant Technical Manager from ATAL Building Services Engineering Ltd., presented the captioned online seminar about the optimisation of energy used in HVAC system on 16 March 2021.
The traditional optimisation method and AI based optimisation methods are introduced. Other AI applications such as cooling load prediction and automatic morning start up were also presented during webinar.
Dr Lee first presented the traditional way that the market is using in chiller plant optimisation. However, there are limitations such as unable to consider all the variables simultaneously. Equipment deterioration will also affect the result.
In a large-scale building, 10 billion items of data will be collected from the sensor and equipment per year. Dr Lee introduced their Artificial Intelligence optimisation method starting from data collection. With the AI machine learning principle, a true optimal point can be identified faster and more flexibly. Dr Lee compared this method with navigation apps used in driving. With a proper map, real time data and robust method, the optimal route can be found.
Dr Lee emphasised the importance of sensor accuracy in the method. The data driven approach discards noisy and non-steady state data. The sensor biases can then be corrected and cleaned. A simplified example was presented to show how this works. A case study of chillers, pumps and cooling towers were also shown to prove that the optimisation performs better.
At the end of the presentation, Dr Lee introduced the Measurement and Verification approach to evaluate the actual energy saving by using the dynamic chiller plant optimisation method. He also introduced the Ongoing Cooling Load Predication approach to justify the chiller switching.
To conclude, the AI based optimisation provides a fast, accurate, consistent and automatic control to achieve Maximise Energy Savings.
The webinar was fruitful, and the speaker Dr Lee answered the raised questions during a question-and-answer session. He shared his views on the way to proceed and benefit maintenance operation with this method. We would like to express our deep gratitude to Dr Lee for delivering such an informative seminar and experience sharing.