{"id":977,"date":"2019-12-13T17:12:26","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T17:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/capitalconstructionprojects\/?p=977"},"modified":"2019-12-13T17:12:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T17:12:28","slug":"taking-a-closer-look-at-osus-energy-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/2019\/12\/13\/taking-a-closer-look-at-osus-energy-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a closer look at OSU’s Energy Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Energy
The OSU Energy Center is a\u00a0cogeneration facility that combines heating and electricity generation. It takes a dedicated seven-member crew to operate the facility year-round, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Abbie Leland<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OSU Energy Center<\/a>, located at the corner of SW 35th Street and SW Jefferson Way, serves an important role on the Corvallis campus as a cogeneration energy facility that combines heating and electricity generation. The facility uses a natural gas-fired turbine and heat recovery steam generator to produce electricity, a more sustainable method of generating electricity. OSU is able to generate nearly half of its electrical needs on-site and produces almost all of the steam used on the Corvallis campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility became fully operational in June 2010, when it replaced the original 95-year-old heat plant on campus. The Energy Center was the first power facility in the nation to receive Platinum LEED Certification<\/a>. Several efficient features of the facility include radiant heating and hot water generated by heat recovery from the steam system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supervisor of Energy Operations Les Walton has worked at the original heat plant and the newer facility throughout the years, as part of OSU’s Facilities Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here\nabout 26 years now,\u201d he said. \u201cI have fun and the crew is fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walton took a\njob with OSU after serving as a boiler repairman with the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI worked at\nthe heat plant then moved over here [to the Energy Center],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a recent\nafternoon tour of the Energy Center, Walton stopped and pointed to a large,\nshiny piece of machinery on the floor of the facility. He explained that the\nbright blue Davey brand air compressor serves as a backup air compressor for\nthe Energy Center. It was moved to the facility from the original heat plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of\nthe first things I worked on when I started here 26 years ago on the graveyard\nshift,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Energy\nCenter has a dedicated seven-member crew that operates the plant year-round, 24\nhours a day, seven days a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walton could\nspend hours explaining the ins and outs of OSU\u2019s campus Energy Operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the original\ngoals for the Energy Center was that it could act as a learning lab for OSU\nstudents. Walton has led tours of the cogeneration facility for thousands of\nOSU faculty and staff members, students studying in the areas of engineering,\nsustainability and renewable energy, and a variety of engineering groups and\ncompanies outside of the university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe students\nsometimes get really engaged during tours, and that\u2019s the cool part \u2013 when they\nare interested and ask questions,\u201d Walton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Abbie Leland\u00a0 The OSU Energy Center, located at the corner of SW 35th Street and SW Jefferson Way, serves an important role on the Corvallis campus as a cogeneration energy facility that combines heating and electricity generation. The facility uses a natural gas-fired turbine and heat recovery steam generator to produce electricity, a more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","missing-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p517Ns-fL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":982,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions\/982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/belowtheradar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}