News

President Wim Wiewel will accept an incentive check of $313,114 from Energy Trust of Oregon for recent energy-efficient improvements to the Fourth Avenue Building. The celebratory event is planned for Thursday, Jan. 21, at 10 a.m. in the lobby of the PSU Engineering Building. Improvements to the building's heating and cooling system will save an estimated 1.4 million kilowatt hours or $126,000 in annual energy costs.

With the help of Interface Engineering, Portland State's $1.1 million upgrade to the Fourth Avenue Building included dedicating a chiller for the data center, installing carbon monoxide controls for parking garage exhaust fans, and using outside air to help cool the building during moderate temperatures. The new installation also replaced constant volume systems with direct digital controls and added a system for re-using energy from the data center to heat the rest of the building.

"We can be more efficient and save energy by heating or cooling spaces only when we need to, rather than letting systems run all the time," said Mark Fujii, PSU Facilities engineer.

Fujii credits Facilities colleagues Robyn Pierce and Nancy Grech for making the upgrade to the Fourth Avenue Building possible. They worked with Interface Engineering on the project and with Oregon companies PAE Consulting Engineers, Hydro-Temp Mechanical, and EESI Environmental & Engineering Services. A representative of Lockheed Martin kept PSU informed of the Energy Trust opportunities.

The building, located on Southwest Fourth and Harrison streets, contains PSU Information Technologies offices, departments and classrooms of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, and private businesses. Built in 1962, the Fourth Avenue Building was acquired by the University in 1997.

PSU has also applied for a Business Energy Tax Credit from Oregon Department of Energy. Fujii says the payback on the investment in the building is less than 10 years.

Energy Trust of Oregon, an independent nonprofit organization, provides cash incentives and solutions that promote energy savings to customers of Portland General Electric, Pacific Power, Cascade Natural Gas, and NW Natural.