Approvals
Every site requires Environmental, Connection, Engineering and Building Construction permits and approvals.

There are many approvals required to install a waterpower system and those approvals are generally the same as those required for larger hydro projects which can make small hydro projects unfeasible.

If the approval process is approached in the same manner as the larger projects, small projects generally just can’t absorb consulting fees for the various approvals.

We therefore have developed our own internal processes to navigate the various approval processes in an efficient manner to ensure the viability of micro hydro projects.

We take all approvals very seriously but at the same time we are advocating for simpler approval processes for small hydro projects while still ensuring environmental protection.

 Learn More about our Approval Services.

Even though GreenBug team members hold advanced university degrees in engineering. GreenBug DOES NOT OFFER or provide professional engineering services and does not hold a certificate of authorization to provide professional engineering services.

Instead GreenBug “designs” all aspects of systems and provides these designs to outside professional engineering firms for engineering services as required in the approvals processes.

Why does GreenBug have staff with advanced engineering degrees but doesn’t offer professional engineering services?

We get asked this from time to time and the reason is that we originally intended to use only outside professional engineering firms for design and engineering services. However, we had little success initially trying to secure design and engineering services.

For instance, we couldn’t find a firm that would calculate the dynamic thrust load on the upper bearing with the screw moving and full of water. (This is understandable considering most professional engineers hold only bachelor degrees in engineering and deal mainly with routine engineering problems.) We therefore had to do it ourselves and approached the universities for help and started research projects with them and eventually hired young advanced degree graduates (PHD and Masters) from these projects or otherwise, but as they were new recent graduates most were not as yet professional engineers (P.Eng) and did not hold certificates of authorizations therefore they were restricted legally under the Professional Engineers Act of Ontario (responsible for regulating the practice of professional engineering in the province) from providing professional engineering services. Therefore, internally we came to “design” only and eventually found experienced exceptional outside engineering firms we could pass our designs to that could provide engineering services as required.