MSc in Sustainable Energy Engineering, BEng (Hons) in Sustainable Energy Engineering and BEng in Building Services Engineering students together with lecturers, Mervin Doyle, Colm Tynan and Tom O’Brien took part in a site visit to Dublin last Thursday. The morning consisted of a tour of the mechanical and electrical services systems at Croke Park and in the afternoon the group attended the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) masterclass in the Croke Park conference centre.
The tour was kindly organised by Pat Lehane of Pressline Ltd (publishers of Building Services News) and facilitated by Edward Brennan of Croke Park who is the facilities officer and Alan O’Reilly of Houghton Young facilities engineers.
The group had a fantastic insight into the operation of the mechanical and electrical systems with visits to the plant rooms and an overview of the building energy management system together with detailed descriptions of the operation of the systems and energy usage at the site. In addition the group met with Stuart Wilson, the pitch manager at Croke Park who provided an insight to the energy related aspects of maintaining a world class pitch.
In the afternoon the group attended the annual CIBSE masterclass event in the Croke Park conference centre. The masterclass is an annual conference event. This year there were two main sessions entitled, “Energy and Environmental” and “New Design and Construction Practices”.
The first session consisted of presentations on topics such as energy legislation, energy regulations in schools, LEED and the sustainable approach at the Lexicon Library Dun Laoghaire. The second session consisted of presentations on building information modelling (BIM), off site fabrication using LEAN, and phase change material energy storage. Speakers were from SEAI, The Department of Education and Skills, Arup Consulting Engineers and RKD Consulting Engineers, DIT and Mercury Engineering.
Overall, attendance at the event was very worthwhile for the students in terms of knowledge gained and also in terms of meeting practicing engineering professionals.
Building services engineering and sustainable energy engineering are the only programmes of their type in the south east, both programmes accredited by Engineeers Ireland with the MSc in Sustainable Energy Engineering being accredited to Chartered Status. Students from the sustainable energy engineering and building services engineering programmes are extremely sought after by employers at present.
SETU Waterford, Cork Road, Waterford City, 
