Using the skills learned from engineering in new ways.
Joshua Macabuag’s background will likely strike a chord with our readers – from a childhood interest in maths and physics, he decided becoming an engineer sounded fun, so found an educational path via a gap year at Arup which led to him graduating from Oxford University as a structural engineer.
But for Macabuag, whilst he retains a passion for the built environment, he eventually realised that this skillset could actually be used in other ways. Read on to find out more about the incredible work he and his teams do to make a difference across the globe.
All photos: Courtesy of Joshua Macabuag / Saraid
PEOPLE
After several years working within consultancies, creating structures from bridges to buildings, Macabuag found his way into the world of catastrophe modelling (quantifying frequency and severity of damages due to disasters). His PhD explored how to model damage from natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes and from there, he found a career niche, working with insurance providers to help quantify risk. This saw his career split into two distinct but related paths – risk modelling for the built environment and an active participation in the voluntary search & rescue communities.
Thanks for talking to us today, Joshua, can you tell us a bit more about Renew Risk?
Joshua Macabuag
Renew Risk was founded in 2021 as my cofounders and I saw a gap in the market for using risk modelling in the renewable energy sector. This sector is rapidly changing, with new and bigger technologies (e.g. turbines and solar farms) being built in disaster-prone parts of the world, for the first time. We believed that our backgrounds and experience could enable this sector to better improve resilience decision making.
For example, offshore windfarms are subject to conditions that go beyond traditional catastrophe modelling, such as combined effects of hurricane wind, wave and current, and earthquakes causing submarine landslides and liquefactions, that all have to be considered simultaneously for all turbines, cables and substations across an affected region. Yes, there are some things that can be factored in but how can you quantify the potential for catastrophe and thereby allow renewable energy developers, owner-operators, governments, banks and insurers to make informed decisions?
Joshua with the Renew Risk team
On Renew Risk role
Risk and catastrophe modelling can help engineers understand the risks – be they financial or societal. This can help make informed decisions about infrastructure of any nature.
About Renew Risk.
Dedicated to renewables sector and cutting-edge risk analytics.
Our vision is to provide the most rigorous scientific modelling and translate the clarity it provides in the sharpest risk analytics for our clients. We understand the challenges and opportunities that renewable energy projects encounter in a changing financial climate and a competitive market.
Collectively, we have over 100+ years of combined experience in renewable energy development, engineering, climate science, software products, risk modelling, insurance, banking, finance, and financial structuring.
Renew Risk is a team of passionate and experienced professionals who are dedicated to advancing renewable energy sector through cutting-edge risk analytics software. We are based in the UK, and we operate globally.
Our technical advisory group comprises individuals from leading global universities, with deep domain expertise in renewable energy, energy risk, construction risk and natural perils. Our business advisory group comprises individuals from insurance, private equity, seasoned fintech investors, and renewable energy developers.
We are committed to supporting the growth of renewable energy and contributing to a sustainable future for our planet. For more info: renew-risk.com
So how do you quantify and manage risk for something that hasn’t existed before?
Joshua Macabuag
he first commercial offshore wind turbines were built in 1991 but for the past 30 years development has since been almost exclusively in the North Sea. At the beginning of 2023 there were only seven offshore wind turbines in the US, but now there is a boom, such that just one of the windfarms we worked on last year was for almost 200 wind turbines, each turbine more than twice the size of the existing turbines – at the top of its rotation the tip of the blade reaches 230m above the water, about the height of the Leadenhall Building (‘the Cheesegrater’) in London. This is new technology, and being built in hurricane regions for the first time, so there is little past-data on which to quantify risk of failure and damage.
Using a Monte Carlo framework, a mathematical technique that predicts possible outcomes of uncertain events, we can analyse the full range of possible outcomes over a complete global database of all turbines, cables, substations under a huge dataset of historic and simulated earthquakes and hurricanes. This allows us to calculate probabilities of damage for a comprehensive range of disaster scenarios, across multiple windfarms, say, throughout a region or country, providing risk decision making tools for everyone from the owners and developers to the insurers and users.
We also make sure we work with the very best experts to help us interpret and inform the data to come up with the size and scale of the risk.
What can engineers learn from disaster modelling to help to design more resilient buildings and infrastructure to withstand these events?
Joshua Macabuag
Risk and catastrophe modelling can help engineers understand the risks – be they financial or societal. This can help make informed decisions about infra-structure of any nature. Whilst it comes from the insurance sector, it is not an insurance tool – it’s a decision making tool.
For example, we have worked with The World Bank to help various governments make decisions about infrastructure – if your county is in an area of hurricanes, what contingencies should be put in place to help the displaced should a natural disaster occur? Can we retrofit anything to help people who might be dishomed if a hurricane occurs? What standards are needed for new buildings in such climate areas? In this example, we are creating a decision making framework for an entire environment, whilst for engineers, it’s more likely to be a single building within a space.
What can engineers learn from disaster modelling to help to design more resilient buildings and infrastructure to withstand these events?
Joshua Macabuag
There should be a much more holistic approach to engineers and insurers working together – ideally from the procurement stage for any new development, insurance companies should be part of the journey to help mitigate or be aware of risk from the very start. Insurers have a lot of knowledge, if brought in at the right time, and can help access and interpret catastrophe modelling technology.
There’s a second element to your working life – and that’s with the incredible team at Saraid. Can you tell us a bit about what they do?
Joshua Macabuag
I’ve been a volunteer engineer with Saraid for over 13 years – the first deployment I was part of was following the tsunami in Japan in 2011.
Saraid was founded to mobilise volunteers from various sectors to support disaster response – and engineers have a unique skill set when it comes to natural disasters.
I’ve always had a fascination with disasters and the impact they have on the community. Saraid has a large community of volunteer engineers who are able to support – our expertise in the built environment means that we can model risk when trying to rescue people from collapsed buildings. For example, on a previous deployment in Nepal, we took a team of 15 people – not just engineers – to help after an earthquake. We approach search & rescue (S&R) by looking at the past, present and future of a collapsed building.
By past, we mean looking at the type of building, where are people likely to have been at the time of the disaster? Even better if we’re able to get blueprints quickly but more likely to ask survivors for insight. We then look at the present – what’s holding up the building now? Can you touch or stand on anything? Are there safe routes to entry? And then, the future – you’re looking at a pile of very heavy, precariously balanced ‘stuff’ with people in it, we want to get people out without knocking down that pile.
Also, buildings don’t just fall in one direction – at one rescue, we realised that what we thought were floors were actually ceilings and where we’d assumed an entrance was, was completely incorrect.
On Saraid role
Saraid has a large community of volunteer engineers who are able to support – our expertise in the built environment means that we can model risk when trying to rescue people from collapsed buildings.
Following this approach, combined with our engineering mindsets as well as working with the wider Saraid S&R team and using tech such as small cameras and heat drones, we were able to bring many people to safety.
If I won the lottery tomorrow, I would happily give up all other work and focus my time and attention on the work that Saraid and other NGOs do across the globe, helping model catastrophes and working with developing countries to help create strategies for those who are at risk.
Finally, what would you say to encourage young people into the engineering profession?
Joshua Macabuag
I found engineering because I had a passion for maths and physics and once I’d got into the field, I loved having a physical output that would allow me to say ‘I built that!’
Having said that, whether it’s engineering or anything else, I’d say to young people to find out what they’re interested in and also what’s fun – I have managed to make a very different career for myself using the skills I learned by engaging in higher education in a subject area I found fun. You don’t have to get stuck in any one space – just make sure you enjoy what you do.
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