New Education Module Developed for BC Electrical Association

For several years, the BC Electrical Association has been offering a Basic Electricity course, led by industry professionals, to give entry level electrical knowledge and a broad overview of electricity and systems to new and junior employees working within the electrical industry.

Course participants started asking for more in-depth information and training in electrical equipment, systems and operations. The BCEA Education Committee took these requests to heart and brought Prism on board to help develop a new module on Electrical Distribution.

The new module took six months to produce and was delivered over three 3-hour evening sessions earlier this month, led by our Senior Electrical Designer Andrew Munro. Stay tuned for a Fall session!

Course Overview: Understanding equipment, distribution systems, power quality and code

The course expands on electrical equipment components, construction of these components and issues of electricity ‘delivery’ to include electricity generation, transformers, panel boards, overcurrent devices, safety switches and other load break equipment, power quality and power factor, wiring, reading engineering drawings and electrical safety. Code related topics are referenced in the course to give participants exposure to critical issues related to selection and use of electrical equipment.

Participants will develop robust knowledge in equipment of electrical distribution, how the equipment ‘relates’ to other components in an electrical distribution system, power quality issues and causes, with some general knowledge of code related issues.

Prism has been providing engineering services for BCIT for many years and as a part of BC Hydro’s Workplace Conservation Awareness program, our team has been supporting their goal of further embedding energy conservation into the culture of BCIT.

In celebration of BCIT’s 50^th Anniversary, BCIT’s Green Team Executive collaborated with Prism to launch an innovative multi-year campaign to encourage energy conservation behaviours in office spaces.

At the heart of the campaign are a team of volunteer staff and faculty in each department trained as Office Doctors who help their coworkers or ‘patients’ to analyze their office space and learn about efficient lighting, managing plug loads and room temperature.

After a successful pilot in the Summer, the campaign in now in full swing with 28 trained Office Doctors. Over the coming months staff and faculty across departments will have the opportunity to learn one-on-one about strategies tailored to their workspace to improve their comfort and save energy.