The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) already stands out among the various venues across the United
States. It is the largest convention center in the Pacific Northwest, with approximately a million square
feet of meeting rooms, exhibit space and 2 large ballrooms. The OCC was the first convention center in the
world to be certified in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Existing Buildings
1.0 category, as well as the only to re-certify at a higher level - LEED Silver in LEED EB 2.0. The decision
to continuously improve sustainability and minimize their carbon footprint is what sets the Oregon
Convention Center apart the most. The facility has been recycling since its completion in 1991, long before
it became ‘cool’ to talk about being green. For the past decade, the OCC has set increasingly impressive
sustainability goals to improve the building’s energy performance and operational efficiency.
Pre-LEED Sustainability Efforts
Even before the Oregon Convention Center began its pursuit of LEED-EBOM (Existing Building:
Operations and Maintenance) recertification in 2008, employees began making a conscious effort to reduce
trash and materials generated by events. The OCC’s ultimate goal is to divert 100 percent of all possible
trash from landfills. Since 2005, the convention center’s diversion levels have increased dramatically each
fiscal year: 28.77 percent (210 tons) of waste was diverted from landfills in 2005-2006, to 67.29 percent (444 tons) in 2010-2011.
“Zero waste is essentially doing all the things you can do to have the least amount of landfill-bound
waste,” says OCC Sustainability Coordinator Brittin Witzenburg, “This can be accomplished through waste
reduction, donating, recycling – getting to the point where all that’s going to the landfill is material that
can’t go anywhere else.”
To achieve this daunting task, the OCC staff started with smaller improvements and worked their
way up. The minor adjustments come first, since they are the easiest and don’t require any remodeling
or construction. 65 recycling bins have been placed around the venue in high-traffic areas, such as the
conference rooms and lobbies. Labeled receptacles for mixed recycling, glass and trash help event
attendees do much of the waste sorting themselves. In the back of the building, the convention center staff
collect and prepare other materials from events. Scrap metal, Styrofoam, and film plastic are sorted, and
cardboard is compacted and baled on-site to be transported to a material recovery facility less than 10 miles
away (which cuts down on gas emissions).
The convention center has asked its vendors to assist with their goal of 100 percent waste diversion.
“One of the things we learned is we all need to work with exhibitors ahead of time to encourage them to
think about what really needs to come to the show and what they don’t need to bring,” Witzenburg says.
Previously, the largest contributor to landfill costs had been food leftovers and other organic material.
The facility added staffed Sustainability Stations to select events where visitors bring their waste to be
composted and recycled to the fullest extent possible. Exhibitors for food-related events are asked to use
compostable plates, napkins and utensils and reduce waste wherever possible. The compost is transported
to Nature’s Needs in nearby North Plains, Oregon, where it becomes gardening compost just 60 days later.
Unused food and materials are donated to local emergency food providers; a single event can generate as
much as 10 tons in food donations.
Once the OCC implemented all of the smaller sustainability measures like adding prominently labeled
recycling bins and switching to more efficient light bulbs, it turned to the more complex ones such as
lighting retrofits, HVAC upgrades, and stormwater filtering to reduce pollutants. In addition, the OCC voluntarily participates in utility offset programs; 40 percent of the facility’s electricity is renewable wind
power purchased from Pacific Power’s Blue Sky Block Program and 100 percent of the natural gas is offset
through the Smart Energy program with NW Natural.
Achieving LEED Certification
As part of the LEED-EBOM certification process, the convention center recruited the help of the Facility Optimization team at Glumac to help retro-commission their new and existing machinery, as
required by the LEED EBOM qualifications.
“We have already determined the ‘low-hanging fruit,’ or the easily identifiable improvements in our
facility,” says Ryan Thorpe, Director of Operations at the OCC, “We hired Glumac to help analyze the
more difficult or hard-to-find energy savings measures.”
During the first phase of the project, the team reviewed the building’s utility bills and created energy
models to simulate existing lighting and equipment loads, to measure where the energy is being used and
to provide a baseline to measure future changes in usage. They examined and calibrated heating, cooling
and air distribution machinery for temperature, pressure and flow sensors. The Facility Optimization team
also checked to ensure that the energy data is being logged correctly, and that the equipment is operating
properly with Building Automation Systems (BAS) trending and manual testing.
The second phase of the retro-commissioning project will include detailed energy analysis of
mechanical equipment over a full range of load and operating schedules. Because the OCC was able to
provide exceptionally detailed and comprehensive records of prior energy use, including separate energy
numbers used specifically for heating, Glumac was able to calibrate the energy model to a level of accuracy
that is not always available on existing building energy analysis. The team also installed a temporary
submeter on the building’s cooling system to log real-time data that helps tune the eQuest energy model
outputs to the utility bills. This enables Glumac to create baseline energy models with real data instead of
general energy equations and formulas.
“It was especially exciting creating these baseline energy models because I had a chance to walk
the project site numerous times with the commissioning team,” says Lura Griffiths, an energy analyst at
Glumac, “They each have over 30 years of commissioning and existing building retrofit experience.”
A detailed on-site reevaluation of existing airside systems, including exhaust and supply fans, helped
Glumac produce a master list of machinery deficiencies and potential improvements for the project owner
to consider.
The Facility Optimization team at Glumac,
which combines energy modeling,
commissioning and systems design, is
skilled at energy audits and analyzing
utility bills for existing buildings. They
have experience helping project owners
reach their energy goals in LEED-EBOM,
Green Guide for Heath Care, and US
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
EnergyStar programs, as well as lower
the building’s carbon footprint. The group
is able to reduce operational costs and
overall energy consumption, and improve
everything from air quality to equipment
reliability.
Increasing Energy Efficiency
Glumac’s team was able to
find several possible improvements
to the convention center that increase
the system efficiency dramatically. For
example, during the retro-commissioning
investigation phase of the project, the team
discovered that the convention center’s
variable air volume (VAV) terminal
units were out of calibration due to an
accumulation of dust and dirt in the flow
sensors. With the assistance of the Facility
Optimization group, the OCC maintenance
staff installed factory-provided filters to
eliminate the particles in the sensors. After
a final recalibration, the air systems show accurate flow readings, and the overall precision of the VAV units has been vastly improved.
Glumac has suggested a list of possible green upgrades for the convention center, including no and
low-cost measures that can be implemented quickly and with little renovation. One suggestion is
rebalancing the boilers and heating pump systems to operate with one pump instead of the two it uses
currently. The team has also suggested swapping out the current boilers for condensing boilers that recover
latent heat at rates of up to 98 percent thermal efficiency to reduce heat loss throughout the building. The
Facility Optimization group are conducting a thorough investigation into the building’s water systems, such
as chillers and cooling towers, during the project’s third phase. Glumac’s Construction Management staff,
who have decades of experience in the mechanical contracting business, developed pricing for the capital
improvement projects. The OCC expects to complete its retro-commissioning project and sustainable
upgrades in July 2013.
Oregon Convention Center Sustainability Stats
Glumac’s Proposed Energy Efficiency Measures (EEM) and Savings
Louisa Gaylord is the Communications Director at Glumac. Rem Wilson is a Principal and head of the Mechanical Department at Glumac’s Portland, OR office as well as a LEED AP. He has extensive engineering experience with green buildings in the educational, institutional and commercial markets. Mitch Dec is one of Glumac’s Senior Energy Analysts.
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