The Oregon Institute of Technology is in hot water and taking full advantage.

Approximately three miles below OIT’s campus in Klamath Falls, a massive water reservoir stretches for nearly two cubic miles. The institute has used the water to heat its buildings (approximately 850,000 square feet) since the mid-1970s.

Now, OIT is preparing to build on its campus a $14 million geothermal power plant able to generate 1.75 megawatts of electricity. Medford-based Batzer Construction recently issued a request for bids from subcontractors for the project.

The facility will be able to pump 2,000 gallons of water – 193 degrees Fahrenheit – per minute.

“I could fill your average swimming pool in about three minutes, but you wouldn’t want to get in it,” said David Epson, OIT’s facilities director.

A 49-foot-wide by 70-foot-long pre-engineered steel building will be erected. Inside, crews from Johnson Controls Inc. will construct two new generators that will pull geothermal water from a 5,308-foot-deep drill shaft created by OIT in 2009.

Geothermal water will be pumped through a closed-loop system next to a liquid refrigerant that flashes into steam at a much lower temperature than water. The steam will be pushed through turbines that create electricity. The geothermal water will return to the reservoir at a different location; steam will be condensed back into liquid.

Toni Boyd with OIT’s Geo-Heat Center, a geothermal resource and consulting group, said that while the up-front construction costs for geothermal systems are high, the long-term savings are significant. Direct geothermal heat costs approximately 20 percent less than natural gas in most residential homes, she said. The new plant is expected to save OIT $500,000 a year.

“And since we’re just using a little electricity to circulate the hot water … you don’t have to worry about the fossil fuel electricity because we’re not burning gas,” she said. “So it’s cleaner.”

In 2010, OIT built a 280-kilowatt geothermal power plant and became the first campus in the world to generate its own power from a resource directly underneath its foundations. But others also are capitalizing on geothermal opportunities in Oregon.

For instance, more than 500 wells provide direct geothermal heat to approximately half of the homes in Klamath Falls.

Also, renewable energy developers Nevada Geothermal Power Inc. and Ormat Inc. to develop a 30-megawatt geothermal power plant in Lake County by 2013. Earlier this year, Reno, Nev.-based Klamath Basin Geopower announced it would begin exploratory drilling on a 2,250-acre Klamath County site that it believes could support a 160-megawatt power plant.

And outside of Bend, Davenport Newberry has partnered with AltaRock Energy Inc. to test an enhanced geothermal system called hydro-shearing. The Department of Energy is providing $21.4 million in matching grants for the project.

In hydro-shearing, high-pressure cold water is injected into natural underground fissures. The water captures the rock’s heat and returns to the surface to power steam turbines.

With a capacity of more than 3,000 megawatts, the United States is the world leader in geothermal energy production. In 2007, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report that found that with an investment of $800 million to $1 billion in research and development, enhanced geothermal systems could provide 100,000 megawatts of clean, cost-competitive energy to the entire country by 2050.

But little money has gone toward such efforts, according to the report.

For its part, OIT plans to feature its new power plant in renewable energy engineering classes. The institute also has applied for a couple of grants to use the power plant as a research tool.

Boyd said one study would model plant performance and look at how output could be affected by temperature increases or use of different refrigerants. Another might explore whether solar technology can improve efficiency in generating geothermal power.

When the new power plant is finished, OIT will be the first campus in the world to supply all of its heating and electrical energy from a geothermal resource directly underfoot. Total savings per year are estimated to reach $1 million.

“We’re trying to reduce our carbon footprint,” Epson said. “We’re trying to be sustainable and reduce our dependence on grid power.”

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The Team

Owner: Klamath Community College
Architect: Mahlum
Landscape architect: 2.ink Studio
Civil engineer: ZCS Engineering
Electrical engineer: Sparling
Mechanical engineer: Interface Engineering
Structural engineer: DCI
General contractor: Adroit Construction

The Details: How do you double the size of a small community college in Southern Oregon? Try adding three new buildings.

That was the plan at Klamath Community College in Klamath Falls. The college now boasts a 37,000 square-foot health sciences building, a 3,500 square-foot bookstore and a 16,000 square foot technology center.

All three buildings feature similar structural components – glue-laminated beams, wood panels, concrete blocks and large south-side overhangs to cut glare from the sun – but they all also have a green angle. The health sciences building and bookstore come with energy-efficient heat recovery systems, automatic lighting sensors and reflective sloped roofs.  The technology center features those same systems and details, but in keeping with a new state mandate that all new public buildings dedicate 1.5 percent of the construction budget to solar technology, the center also boasts a series of solar panels.

Construction costs for the three buildings totaled $11 million.

Hey, you … yeah, you. Do you have a green project you’d like to highlight in the 91��Ƶ’s Energy & Sustainability focus sections? The next section publishes in December, so you have until Nov. 1 to send us some information about what makes your project a green one. Submit by email to news@djcorprod.wpengine.com. Be sure to include the words “Green Scene” in the subject line.  And don’t forget the pictures.

The post The Green Scene: 3 new buildings on the Klamath Community College campus appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Oregon University System today broke ground on a huge solar project, slated to be the state’s largest.

The first phase of the project will include ground-mounted solar arrays at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, Eastern Oregon University and Oregon State University. All told, the panels will cover 27 acres and generate nearly 5 megawatts of power.

The project, called “Solar by Degrees,” begins at OIT, which established the first renewable energy engineering degree in the country in 2005. The solar energy, combined with that from a new geothermal power plant that comes online in 2012, will be able to cover all of OIT’s electricity and heating needs.

The second phase of the project will spread solar to the other four campuses in the OUS system – Portland State University, Southern Oregon University, University of Oregon and Western Oregon University. Expected in 2012, the second round of installations will probably be rooftop arrays.

Part of the project’s focus is to make use of local solar companies: Portland-based Oregon Electric is the lead contractor for the project; the solar inverters are from PV Powered of Bend; and the solar panels are from SolarWorld‘s U.S. headquarters in Hillsboro.

SolarWorld, an international solar company based in Germany, also announced today that its panels will power a 2-megawatt project on property owned and operated by the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara, which may be the largest affordable housing solar project in the U.S.

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The Klamath Tribes of Klamath Falls, Oregon have decided to put the 2009 Water System Well out for re-bid again. The project was first advertised in November of 2009, and  the Tribes did not receive any bids. The Tribes put the project out for re-bid in December of 2009.

The results of the re-bid issued in December were not much better. The Tribe received three bids for the contract. Western Water Development: $197,400; Casey Jones Well Drilling: $284,995; and Schneider Equipment: $360,509. The bids were two to three times the estimated cost of $115,000 – $125,000 for the project.

Contractors interested in bidding on the water system well project are having a tough time obtaining a bid bond for the project. Due to the “sovereign language” of the Klamath Tribe project, most bond companies are refusing to bond contractors for the project.

The Tribe plans to re-bid and re-advertise the project. Plan holders of the previous two bids will just receive an addendum when the project is re-advertised to add to the plans, specifications, and addenda that have been issued so far. For those companies that are not on either plan holders list they will need to request new documents for the project.

The post One more time around… appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Klamath Tribes of Klamath Falls, Oregon have decided to put the 2009 Water System Well out for re-bid again. The project was first advertised in November of 2009, and  the Tribes did not receive any bids. The Tribes put the project out for re-bid in December of 2009.

The results of the re-bid issued in December were not much better. The Tribe received three bids for the contract. Western Water Development: $197,400; Casey Jones Well Drilling: $284,995; and Schneider Equipment: $360,509. The bids were two to three times the estimated cost of $115,000 – $125,000 for the project.

Contractors interested in bidding on the water system well project are having a tough time obtaining a bid bond for the project. Due to the “sovereign language” of the Klamath Tribe project, most bond companies are refusing to bond contractors for the project.

The Tribe plans to re-bid and re-advertise the project. Plan holders of the previous two bids will just receive an addendum when the project is re-advertised to add to the plans, specifications, and addenda that have been issued so far. For those companies that are not on either plan holders list they will need to request new documents for the project.

The post One more time around… appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.