Ontario Construction News staff writer
Endress+Hauser Canada has broken ground on a new $28 million Customer Experience Centre in Burlington. The new two-story, approximately 47,000 sq. ft. building endeavours to achieve the LEED Gold certification standard and to function on a net zero carbon, the company says in a statement.
The current 27,000 sq. ft. headquarters is primarily an administration building, with few customer services except for one classroom used for training purposes. The new facility, planned for occupancy in the fall of 2020, will include a Process Training Unit (PTU), as well as a calibration laboratory, an expanded workshop and a large training centre.
The company supplies operating process and laboratory instrumentation and automation instrumentation and systems.
The PTU concept, featured in Endress+Hauser facilities globally, including Edmonton, is essentially a full sized pilot plant with a wide range of instrumentation. “All of our customers and partners will be able to come in and simulate process conditions that they would find in their own plants,” says the Anthony Vagra, the company’s Canadian division CEO and general manager.
The new facility will be built on a four-acre site about 400 metres from the current one. The building will be effectively off the hydro grid. Plans to achieve net zero energy and emissions include using a reflective roof with double-sided solar panels to generate electricity during the day. At night, most electrically powered systems like video monitors will be turned off rather than drawing even standby power and the building environment will be maintained by heat pumps supplemented by a geothermal system.