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A lot of green is going into the $12.5 million science building project at Central Oregon Community College in Bend.

Energy-saving techniques and green products are being used in construction, and the finished product will feature green science labs that use fewer fume hoods and less caustic materials, said Rick Hayes, COCC project manager.

The building is part of an pilot project to certify small commercial buildings, and Hayes said the school is pursuing EA gold certification.

“We’re kind of guinea pigs, but we get a lot of advantages from the program,” Hayes said. “Earth Advantage has modeled a lot of building types regionally and (it) has some prescriptive guides locally for energy savings that we want to use.”

The EA program ranks buildings in five areas: materials, land, health, water and energy. The energy component uses standards developed by the Energy Trust of Oregon and New Buildings Institute.

Earth Advantage will award silver, gold and platinum certifications in its new program, Hayes added.

“They’re moving toward certification for small-scale commercial buildings, and it’s less expensive for a project like ours than LEED certification would be,” he said.

The EA program, similar to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, is slightly more focused on energy savings, added Mark Stoller, the principal in charge of the project at .

“One area they’re very interested in is the building envelope, or shell, and its performance,” Stoller said. “They look for continuous insulation where you don’t have windows so there are no thermal breaks.”

Windows in the 45,000-square-foot science building will use a high-performance glazing to keep in heat, and the site also will have radiant floor heating in the exposed concrete, he said.

Structural elements in the building include skylights that will illuminate both the top floor of the two-story building, and light wells that will let natural light reach the first story, Hayes said.

The western portion of the building will be a two-story open lobby with large windows facing the Cascades, which will also add a good amount of light, said Mike Taylor, general manager of , the project’s primary contractor.

“The whole western face of the building is this great view, with study rooms and conference rooms that take advantage of it,” Taylor said. “We like our view over here in Central Oregon.”

Because the chemistry department uses what it considers green chemistry – lab experiments with fewer and less caustic chemicals – the school was also able to reduce the number of fume hoods in each lab to two, and reduce energy use. Typically, science labs have more, Hayes said.

The school also plans to add solar panels to the roof, but officials haven’t decided yet on a plan, he said.

“We’re still determining how we want to do that – whether we’ll buy them ourselves or get into a power purchase agreement with somebody,” Hayes said. “We’re also not sure if we’ll put them in during construction or after.”

The heat transfer machine – a variable refrigerant flow system – will transfer energy within the building, Hayes said.

“It’s a three-pipe system that uses refrigerant and pumps,” Hayes said. “So if you have a room that maintains temperature better, or is … well insulated, it might have excess heat than a room down the hall with large windows. And the room with more windows might be cooler. So the system pushes the heat and cool around to redistribute the temperature more evenly.”

The system is made by Mitsubishi, and it’s relatively new to the Pacific Northwest, he said.

“It’s high efficiency and it’s relatively new to the West Coast,” Hayes said. “It’s a good system for energy savings as for an institution worried about operating costs, and it’s also good for the Earth Advantage system.”

Another difference from LEED is that in the EA program, officials come to the site with the architect and prime contractor three times during the construction process, Stoller said.

“Primarily they do that to inspect the building envelope, but they come and talk to everybody to make sure they all understand the process,” Stoller said. “With LEED, there’s nobody to come out during the construction phase.”

Construction on the site began shortly after the contract was awarded on Thursday. The first phase will involve removing part of a parking lot and then removing part of the underlying basalt hillside with rock hammers, Taylor said.

Workers will then start adding the structure’s concrete base, likely in early April, he said.

“One of the biggest schedule challenges, though, will be getting that hole dug,” Taylor said.

Because of some of the specialized lab casework and other work, the company is also bringing in more subcontractors than it does usually, he said.

“It’s moderately complex,” Taylor said. “There’s lots of stainless steel duct work, some pressure differences across the building we have to deal with.”

Construction should employ between 65 and 75 people in the region, he said.

“It’s a decent boost for the industry here,” Taylor said.

The building should be finished by mid-2012, he added.