Rise Above

At the beginning of 2020, it would have been hard to imagine that we, as a society, would be grappling with such devastating events, without suitable leadership. It’s eery how similar this year has been to the histories of 1918, 1929, and 1968. These past few months have revealed a lot of darkness, isolation, and misery, with few bright spots.

When you witness an abdication of responsibility, be the leader you want to see; rise above the the void and shine light for others to clearly observe. We stand with communities of color: we see you and hear you. Together we can build a culture of inclusivity without forgetting where we’ve been and knowing where we still need to go.

Below is a list of organizations we are supporting, to combat stereotypes, discrimination, and persecution:

• American Civil Liberties Union
  Works in the courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
  To secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.

• National Urban League
  To help African-Americans and others in underserved communities achieve their highest true social parity, economic self- reliance, power, and civil rights. The League promotes economic empowerment through education and job training, housing and community development, workforce development, entrepreneurship, health, and quality of life.

• Southern Council
  Promote racial justice, protect democratic rights and broaden civic participation in the Southern United States.

• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
  Prevent and remedy unlawful employment discrimination and advance equal opportunity for all in the workplace.

Model Exchanges & Optimized Performance

Autodesk Revit is a great coordination tool for the AEC industry. It allows for alignment of systems and a systematic approach to document management. However, there are a couple of ways that we can streamline load times for our design team and have less space allocated on our servers. Revit file sizes can become large fast, without proper care. This, in turn, consumes large amounts of available server space, which is avoidable. The steps highlighted below will expand productivity of our teams and extend the useful life of the file management systems that we use on a daily basis.

Optimized Performance
File size reduction is a growing issue, pun intended. Below are a few options to aid in decreasing model load times, which can directly increase productivity.

1. Purge unused objects. Please note that purged objects cannot be recovered. If unsure, make a backup of your project before purging.

2. Remove superfluous or unused design options. When changes are made within the main model, all design options have to be updated, even though options may not be active or visible.

3. Remove unused raster images or renderings, as they can quickly increase file size. Additionally, refrain from importing large images and then scaling them down to fit the title block. The image will retain its original file size. Use appropriately size images with correct resolution settings.

4. Create a minimal drafting view for opening and closing the project. Before saving and closing, open this view and close any other open views. This will prevent unused views from being loaded during startup, freeing up memory and increasing performance.

Weekly Model Exchanges
During the design portion of each project, the design team should setup a weekly model exchange. This means that the design team agrees on a regularly scheduled exchange of information. Each consultant uploads and shares a Revit model so that everyone working on the project has the most updated data around which to design. This helps to ensure collaboration happens throughout the design process, rather than just at the end of each design phase.

At Aethera Engineers, we house the method by which we download and upload Revit models and other Construction Documents, i.e. Drawings and Specifications, within the folder structure of each project. This ensures that anyone coming into a project has the ability to post on behalf of the organization. The file contains the link, username, and password for downloading or uploading requisite information.

Leading Effective Meetings

We have all attended meetings; some productive, while others were a waste of time. Effective meetings, in-person or through telepresence software, bolster camaraderie and provide clear direction. Claire Hughes Johnson, the COO of Stripe says “if it’s not working, your team is probably not working.” Take this to heart. Meetings should have a purpose and a flow that is replicable and engaging. Below are some best practices for having good meetings, whether held in a conference room or your home office.

Preparation
An agenda sets up a meeting for success. Otherwise, attendees don’t have a structure to follow, which hampers the flow of the meeting. In an optimal setup, agendas provide a framework for reference, including: project name and number, date, time, location, attendees, purpose, topics of discussion, and decision points. It’s advisable to send agendas out as an attachment or within the notes field of calendar invites, so those in attendance can prepare. When planning out and writing your agenda, consider the purpose of each topic, the process used for discussion, and the anticipated payoff or benefit. This will aid in generating clear, concise material. Make sure to allocate a defined timeframe for each item on your agenda.

Identification of a moderator and a note-taker will ensure conversation is fluid and covers documentation. Note that the person originating the meeting doesn’t need to be the moderator. Also, confirm that the note-taker is familiar with the discussion topics, so that clarifications are kept to a minimum. In a pinch, the same person can fill these roles, although this is not optimal.

If you’re hosting a conference call or video meeting, decide whether you will be using audio-based conferencing or video-based remote meetings. There are costs and benefits to each. Audio-based conferencing can save bandwidth for other activities on your connection, but are often less engaging. When only using audio, people often put themselves on mute and complete other tasks, instead of focusing on the content of the meeting. Video-enabled, remote meetings hold people accountable and promote a more active and collaborative environment. If your bandwidth allows, try enabling video to have real conversations.

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Video Setup for Remote Meetings
Are you a video conferencing professional? If you aren’t, or are looking to be more professional, we have listed out a few points for you to consider, which are well communicated by A. Lee Judge of Content Monsta. Check out his YouTube video for more in-depth explanations, tips, and genuinely refreshing commentary.

1. Camera: Built-In vs. Standalone

2. Sound Quality: Headset or External

3. Room, Materials, and Background

4. Lighting: Position and Intensity

5. Proper Camera Placement

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Set aside five minutes before the meeting starts to join the meeting. This will give you time to troubleshoot any issues you encounter. We all know technology doesn’t want to work when we need it to the most. You can be on time to your meeting, rather than have an apology be your introduction. Being late communicates that your time is more important than everyone else in attendance. Don’t be selfish.

Attendance and Running the Meeting
Efficient meetings have clear, established ground rules that aid in behavior modification and can reduce potential conflict, especially with time constraints. A few foundational statements on meeting etiquette include:

1. Have One Conversation at a Time

2. Avoid Personal Agendas

3. Offer Solutions, Not Complaints

4. Abstain From Lectures

5. Silent Cell Phones and Put Away

To keep attendees on topic and on track, use a parking lot. This technique records any tangential issues in a list that the group revisits at the end of the current meeting. When recording parking lot items, the note-taker writes down who will do what by when. This helps redirect conversation to listed agenda items, accomplishing the goal(s) of the meeting. Remember, each item on the agenda should have an allotted time frame, which the moderator needs to enforce. Limiting the duration of each topic will ensure your meeting ends at the agreed upon time.

As you dive into each topic on your agenda, the moderator should lead the group through an examination process. This procedure of sequential analysis includes:

1. Addressing Background and Facts

2. Brainstorming Creative Alternatives

3. Deliberate Costs and Benefits

4. Decisive Agreement

5. Identify Next Steps or Action Items

Without structure, discussions lack cohesion and cover many subjects in a simultaneous manner. When addressing a topic one issue at a time, i.e in a serial format, we realize time savings with minimal frustration. This leads to decisions that give clear direction for attendees and any other stakeholders affiliated with the project.

The use of charts and graphs provide clarity, while a textual format provides depth of understanding. Use these elements together to communicate a cohesive message. Additionally, metaphors and analogies can help make connections stick in the minds of attendees. Creating a story is much more impactful than a complex explanation.

This leads us to the importance of having conversations during our meetings; speaking and listening. Ask open-ended questions to draw out people, improving collaboration and participation. This enables attendees to feel heard and levels the playing field, so that everyone experiences empowerment. Refrain from lecturing as much as possible.

Attending a Conference Call or Video Meeting?
First off, please mute your microphone when not speaking. This will help reduce pesky feedback and reduce annoyance of periodic breathing in microphones. Yes, the latter is a common occurrence. Otherwise, you should act the same as if it is an in-person meeting. In a conference room, you wouldn’t be hiding behind a curtain, i.e. no video, you’d be sitting at a table. Dress in an appropriate manner and be an active participant. Meetings shouldn’t be circuses, so keep this in mind regarding distractions in your off-site environment.

Telepresence and conference calls don’t need to be void of culture and can even be more efficient at facilitation of real conversation. If you have a larger group in attendance, major platforms have a feature to engage breakout rooms. This splits your meeting attendees into equal, smaller groups to promote engagement and idea exchange. Conversations can only happen in groups of five or less. Breakout room functionality is actually more effective and efficient than in the real-world. It subdues conversations that arise during dispersion and eases the inevitable difficulty in reconvening the group at large.

After the Meeting
The note-taker handles compiling meeting notes. They shall derive input from the moderator and clarify any attendee-specific information. After verification of accuracy, meeting minutes are produced and distributed to all attendees by the moderator, in a timely fashion.

Meeting minutes help to provide crucial information to anyone that missed the meeting. Documentation is helpful in holding people accountable for commitments and a valuable resource. Attendees should archive meeting minutes in a centralized location for all other team members to access.

All attendees need to read the documentation to ensure their understanding matches the document. This goes for action items as well. Agreements made in productive meetings lead to next steps implemented by team members and checked on by leaders. Follow up by the moderator and other stakeholders ensures expected progress transpires.

When preparing for your next meeting, make sure to distribute a proper agenda, identify key roles, follow ground rules, have real conversations, be decisive, and circulate meeting minutes. If not, your ineffective meetings will contribute to time waste and social disconnection. Remember that collaboration is essential for productivity, production, and progress. Without clear decisions and action items, uncertainty will lead to inaction.

Relevant Links for Effective Virtual Meetings
Below are a couple of links to stories that relate to the overall subject matter of this post.

1. Harvard Business Review. (2020, March 05) What It Takes to Run a Great Virtual Meeting. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2020/03/what-it-takes-to-run-a-great-virtual-meeting

2. Seth’s Blog. (2018, September 15) Zoom & Skype call tips (the secrets of video conferences). Retrieved from: https://seths.blog/2018/09/how-to-be-on-a-zoom-or-skype-call-the-secrets-of-video-conferences/

3. Microsoft Growth Center. (2019 April 03) 6 Ways to Make Virtual Meetings More Efficient. Retrieved from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/growth-center/resources/6-ways-to-make-virtual-meetings-more-efficient

Solar Studies 101: Theory, Array Capacity, and Energy Savings

Solar panels are a great way to offset energy costs for many owners. The fuel may be free, in the sunlight that bears down on our buildings, but the upfront capital needed to build out a fully functional solar panel array can be off-putting to some. While photovoltaic arrays will not be the solution for net-zero, or even net-positive, building energy consumption, it will be a valuable contributor. This is why Aethera Engineers makes the time in all of our projects to conduct an electrical energy generation analysis for photovoltaic systems. Thus, the design team can make decisions based on data with confidence.

Theory
A bit of background on the underlying the photovoltaic (PV) effect is depicted in the following graphic. Essentially, when a photovoltaic cell is exposed to light, a potential difference, i.e. voltage, is created and electrons flow, such that current is induced. The energy produced by the solar modules can then be directly consumed by building systems, stored in batteries for later consumption, or transmitted to an electric utility grid that is connected to the building. This is great for offsetting building consumption during peak times, which has a direct impact on electricity costs for the Owner, providing a net savings over the life of the building.

“How Do Solar Panels Work? The Science of Solar Explained.” by SolectEnergy.

Solar Array Capacity
We start by requesting a roof plan from the Architect, which often includes explicit areas outlined for solar panel installation. If not, we can infer placements coordinated with roof-mounted building systems equipment, such as air handling units (AHUs), condensing units for direct expansion (DX) or variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems, and fan enclosures for exhaust, dedicated outside air systems (DOAS), among others.

In the screen capture below, you can see the estimated roof area as determined by an Architect. Notice that there are generous clearances from the edges of the roof as well as ample space to facilitate movement from the roof access hatch. In this particular example there were no roof mounted building systems, which contributed to an increased utilization factor of the roof. Let’s use the value of 7,594 square feet for our calculations.

Screen capture from design of AISD Menchaca Elementary School, Building Roof Plan by LPA, Inc.

Once the roof area is determined, we choose a typical solar panel as a basis of design. Choosing a typical option allows us to understand the dimensions of each solar panel and ultimately provides the quantity of solar panels that will fit within our prescribed roof area. We can then multiply the number of solar panels by the nominal power per solar panel, measured in watts, to arrive at the overall solar array capacity.

Screen capture from REC Solar Peak Energy 72 Series Product Data Sheet, emphasis added.

Given information supplied by a solar panel manufacturer, we can see that a selected typical solar panel is approximately 21 square feet in area. If we use the anticipated area provided earlier (7,594-sf) we find that roughly 360 solar panels can fit within the roof area. We also know the nominal power output of the selected basis of design solar panel is 315-watts. Thus, we can estimate the capacity of the solar array to be 113.4-kW.

Energy Savings
Solar output is only as good as the amount of sunlight that your solar array experiences. We need to estimate the amount of solar radiation, i.e. sunlight, that the solar array will receive, which is based on orientation and physical location. For this, Aethera Engineers uses a software program called RETScreen Expert. This clean energy project analysis software sources its location and climate data from NOAA/NWS or NASA ground stations. For this example we are using the San Antonio International Airport weather station. In the graph below, you can see that daily sunlight is minimal during the winter, and at its peak during summer, as expected. The annual average daily solar radiation is estimated at 4.95 kWh per square meter, each day. This value is higher the closer a location is to the equator.

Screen capture from RETScreen - Energy Model, depicting daily solar radiation data for San Antonio, TX.

Now that we have a value for the average daily solar radiation, our last variable to contemplate is Capacity Factor, which represents the ratio of the average power produced by the solar array over a year to its rated capacity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases annual data on capacity factors for utility scale generators primarily using non-fossil fuels on a periodic basis. Below is a graph of these data for solar photovoltaic capacity factors from 2009 to 2019, as well as the proposed band of typical capacity factors of 5% - 20%, as recommended by RETScreen.

Data derived from EIA Electric Power Monthly, Table 6.07.B. Graph generated by Aethera Engineers.

While the average photovoltaic capacity factor over the last decade is calculated as 23.2%, we will use the more conservative value of 20.0% for our energy savings calculation. This affords the Owner additional savings in the event that the capacity factor out performs the expected value, which is reasonable to assume given the historical data. After inputting the capacity factor of 20.0% in RETScreen, we arrive at the total expected energy savings, calculated at 198,677-kWh.

Screen capture from RETScreen - Energy Model, depicting energy saved, emphasis added.

To put this number into perspective, the average Texas home consumes roughly 1,174-kWh of energy per month, or 14,088-kWh of energy per year. Therefore, this 113.4-kW example solar array would supply power equivalent to fourteen homes for an entire year. The next installment of Quintessence will pick up here and dive into the initial costs, operations and maintenance, rebates, debt service, and fuel savings, to determine the payback timeline and the overall feasibility of a solar photovoltaic system.

Relevant Links in Solar Sustainability
Below are a couple of links to stories that relate to the overall subject matter of this post, which have been published in the past few weeks.

1. Wired. (2020, February 22) Family Farms Try to Raise a New Cash Cow: Solar Power. Retrieved from: https://www.wired.com/story/family-farms-try-to-raise-a-new-cash-cow-solar-power/

2. BBC. (2020, February 19) The World’s Most Unlikely Solar Farms. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200219-the-solar-farms-fighting-climate-change-in-alaska

Project Numbers and Stardates

Throughout business, companies use abbreviations and numbers to refer to all sorts of content. In the AEC industry, our clients and fellow sub-consultants often use different numbering schemes to refer to the same project. While this can be confusing, we all understand that the underlying work is what is important. Even though you may never have to know our project numbers, it’s fun to let you in on how we format ours at Aethera Engineers.

Stardates
A brief science-fiction lesson is in order. Most readers should be at least tangentially familiar with the Star Trek universe, which created stardates as a fictional structure of time. Stardates can often be heard at the beginning of episodes and are commonly referred to in documentation, such as Captain’s Logs. There are a few variations that have been adopted over time. All of them are different ways of cataloging the century and season of each series, followed by incrementing a set of numbers. We ended up settling on a format which echoes stardates from The Next Generation era, such as 47457.1, which happens to be Captain Picard Day.

Exceedingly curious individuals can go in-depth on the Stardate Wikipedia page.

Project Numbers
Some basic data that Aethera Engineers wanted to make accessible when referencing a project number were:
⦿ The status of the project (S)
⦿ The year the project was pursued (YY)
⦿ An unique identifier (##)
⦿ Whether the project was a base contract or an Additional Service Request (A).

Given these constraints, we found that a stardate format suited our needs, categorically represented as SYY.##.A, or numerically as 220.01.0. This format gives æ the flexibility to organize our server folder structure, but also aids in standardization when we link documents and code, which helps to increase our efficiency.

Date Format
Lastly, while we are on the topic of (star)dates and formats, it’s noteworthy that Aethera Engineers has also standardized on ISO 8601 Data Elements and Interchange Formats – Information Interchange – Representation of Dates and Times. Thus, wherever practical, we use a date format of  YYYY-MM-DD, which means that the lexicographic order matches the chronological order. This is very convenient when organizing files alphabetically on a server, so that files appear in a predictable, sequential order.

At Aethera Engineers, we put thought into the small things, like project numbers and dates, so that our organization can be more responsive to you, our client. We also don’t shy away from who we are, Engineers that like to have fun in our work environment!

Aethera Engineers: An MEP Firm with a Focus on Follow Through

SAN ANTONIO — Nov. 13 2019 — We are proud to announce that Aethera Engineers, LLC is available to provide Professional Engineering Services within the State of Texas. Over the next several months we are excited to meet with Architects, Developers, Owners, and fellow Engineers to share our vision. Under the leadership of Michael L. Reise, P.E., Aethera Engineers delivers over a dozen years of MEP Engineering expertise and Project Management prowess in North, Central, and South Texas. We look forward to connecting with you and making your mission a reality through the built environment.

About Aethera Engineers
Aethera Engineers is a metrics based organization that seeks harmony between people and profits, with progression, engagement, and connection at our core. We began as an ethereal idea, not unlike how our clients conceive of buildings, bringing change to their environments for the betterment of those around them. At æ, we believe there is a better way to do business, which puts the client first and fosters meaningful development. This culminates in true ownership and commitment to delivering results.

At æ, we are guided by five principles: progression, ownership, connection, engagement, and results. For more information on our foundation, visit aethera.io/firm-profile and follow us on social media for periodic updates @_aethera.

Source Material
Check out some of our founding documents linked below.