Prism Wins Awards of Merit for Lighting Design at NAV Canada

Andrew Munro, Senior Electrical Designer at Prism Engineering, is the proud recipient of two awards from the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) this month: Illumination Awards of Merit for Lighting Control Innovation and Energy & Environmental Lighting Design.

The awards are presented for Andrew’s work at NAV Canada’s Surrey Area Control Centre, where he has designed a new lighting system for NAV Canada’s 10,000sqft air traffic control room. NAV Canada had previously been unable to install a new control system with glossy screens, due to the glare from computer screens and below-standard lighting levels. Prism’s lighting design needed to achieve three important features:

• flatness of the light (i.e. little to no glare on work surfaces and screens),
• reaching or exceeding government standard lighting levels, and
• improving energy efficiency.

Adding complexity to this task, the new system needed to satisfy the lighting preferences of a rotating group of diverse individuals, who occupy the space 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In order to design the system, Andrew spent a day interviewing various occupant groups, and months completing lighting simulations. The project took a year to complete, from the initial study to implementation. We succeeded in achieving the three main targets, and also managed to satisfy all employees’ lighting preferences by selecting a system in which each individual lamp, in each individual fixture, is controllable from 0 to 100% lighting level. The innovative design has also dropped energy consumption by a whopping 38%!

This year marks 25 years of business in BC for Prism Engineering. We are grateful to everyone that has played a role in building our business to where it is today. To our clients, staff, suppliers and contractors – thank you! We could not have come this far without you.

On May 7th, over 100 of our clients, staff and collaborators came together in Downtown Vancouver to celebrate this special milestone with an evening filled with food, drinks and reflections on building a company from the ground up.

It has been an exciting journey for Prism this past 25 years. On top of being one of the first to have an Energy Manager contract, Prism developed BC Hydro’s Strategic Energy Management plan, created PUMA – a utility management tool that supports energy management programs, and were the ones to identify the value of coaching for re-commissioning projects.

The results speak for themselves – over $30 million of identified annual energy savings, better indoor environments, improved comfort, more reliable building system operations. Our commitment to building knowledge in the industry is demonstrated through providing energy management courses to nearly 8500 people. Over the last 5 years, we have built an impressive engagement team promoting the impact that people can have on saving energy to truly round out our offering.

Thinking about our future is invigorating. Energy conservation and efficiency is now a fundamental part of our culture in BC. We have seen our industry grow and demonstrate the benefits of energy savings.

At Prism, we have the expertise, energy and knowledge to meet the challenges of the next 25 years.

Prism’s President Robert Greenwald and Founder Brian O’Donnell present the cake