Ulteig Employee Spotlight: Morgan Allaby

Morgan Allaby Crafts Seamless Communication in Intricate Energy-Supplying Systems as a Systems Integrator at Ulteig

In a day and age where technological systems can communicate across hundreds of thousands of miles, nothing far away is ever really that far away.

Morgan Allaby, Systems Integrator in Ulteig’s Hamilton, Ontario office, bridges the gap between devices in the field and the data-hungry end user. Allaby’s work in systems integration provides the interfaces for monitoring and controlling solar, wind and battery storage projects.

“I work to create intuitive user experiences so clients can access and understand their real-time and historical data quickly,” said Allaby. “I’ve developed my own tools and scripts to meet the unique needs of Ulteig’s clients.”

Allaby has been a systems integrator for more than five years, and over six months of which have been with Ulteig. Allaby joined the Ulteig team when Ulteig acquired NLS Engineering in 2021, for whom Allaby had been working.

Flipping the Script for the Better

Allaby holds a degree in Studio Art from McMaster University in Ontario. The integrator began his career as a Marketing Lead with NLS Engineering. After becoming involved with website development, branding and design for print in his marketing role, he launched into the realm of system integration and began to perform SCADA integration work in parallel with his marketing role.

“I was able to take my sense of aesthetics and apply it to the interfaces and systems that our clients use every day,” said Allaby. “It’s an exercise of continuous improvement. I take and implement feedback over the course of dozens of projects, and the product ultimately becomes the best of all our efforts and generates higher quality solutions for our clients.”

Integrators like Allaby have a hand in how operators interact with large solar sites. Operators rely on these systems to assess the performance of their portfolios, the power from which is bound for North American homes and businesses.

“There is a large technical underbelly to everything we do as systems integrators, and there are many details behind the scenes that must be considered to get the most out of the SCADA system,” said Allaby. “Balancing performance with data density on large sites with a high volume of historical data poses an interesting challenge, for example.”

Building a solid System Integration and SCADA foundation for a project is crucial work that allows technicians to:

• Efficiently resolve outages
• Predict and present failures
• Improve information exchange between locations
• Fortify cybersecurity measures

Innovating Customized Integration Solutions

Allaby notes that one of the most important parts of a SCADA project is listening intently to the needs of the client. The integrator prides himself on his ability to produce work that is finely attuned to the client’s desires for the project.

“Ulteig is very customer-focused,” said Allaby. “Good communication and building a relationship with the client are critical to project success.”

Allaby works directly with his clients to determine how to conduct the Human Machine Interface (HMI), a software replacement for physical controls, which technicians use to operate and adjust a system. He has a particular focus on adding specialized functionality to meet the unique reporting needs of clients.

“I aim to be as responsive to the client as possible. In practice, this means implementing new reports or views in a short timeframe to suit their operational needs,” said Allaby. “With new projects, we work directly with the client to identify and implement the required functions and establish conventions for further work with that client.”

Allaby’s expertise particularly shines when he gets to create unique scripts beyond the level that basic software can achieve, and some of these new features are then adopted into Ulteig’s core HMI offering.

A Designer Through-and-Through

Allaby fosters his creative pursuits outside of work as well. The integrator doubles as an artist with an affinity for sculpture, drawing, and digital art.

“My artwork is very process-based. Most of my day-to-day work is in a digital space, so I enjoy working with my hands to create something physical,” said Allaby.

The artist and programming-extraordinaire has been featured at various shows and exhibitions, beginning when he was an undergraduate in university, and he describes his art as mainly human, figurative work.

Experience Ulteig

Explore Employment Opportunities to find your place among Ulteig’s sharp-minded team. To read other employee spotlights such as Morgan Allaby’s, visit Ulteig’s Knowledge Center.