Eco-district plans gain traction in Portland

Enlarge Image

John Sorenson

John Sorenson has a grand vision: using beer to provide heat to the north part of Portland’s Pearl District.

More specifically, 70 percent of the power to create heat would come by the production of methane gas from breweries’ left-over mash, something they usually pay to have removed.

Sorenson’s proposal is one of several for establishing eco-districts in Portland: areas where the benefits from sustainable building and energy projects are shared among a neighborhood or district. Creation of an eco-district is often described as extending to an entire neighborhood the principles applied to constructing sustainable buildings.

According to a city-funded feasibility study, building the North Pearl plant would cost $73 million to $122 million, depending on the size and complexity of the plant and the size of the area served. Using beer mash, by the way, is only one of three proposals for the power source. The others rely more heavily on natural gas.

“We’re looking for communities or neighborhoods that have an interest in re-localizing some of their fuel sources,” said Sorenson, head of consulting firm Neighborhood Natural Energy. “One is an economic case. The other is a social, environmental one.”

However, Sorenson’s vision is on hold. Hoyt Street Properties and other major land owners in the area support the idea, he said, but don’t see it coming to fruition until more of the North Pearl is redeveloped — an unlikely scenario in the present economy.

College campuses and hospital facilities have for decades shared heating and air conditioning among buildings, but the departure point in this latest brand of hyper-sustainability comes when developers start talking about co-generation plants, which distribute electricity as well as heat, and use alternative fuels to run them.

The nonprofit Portland+Oregon Sustainability Institute defines an eco-district as a neighborhood or district with a broad commitment to accelerate neighborhood-scale sustainability. The year-old institute is helping generate proposals for establishing five eco-districts. One is the South Waterfront area where the institute is working with Oregon Health & Science University. The others are at Portland State University, in the Lloyd District and in Portland’s Lents and Gateway neighborhoods. In each case, no studies have yet resulted in even rough cost estimates.

The proposal for a co-generation plant in the South Waterfront area, however, is getting closer to that stage.

OHSU wants to provide heat, energy and water among all the buildings at its planned 20-acre Schnitzer campus, to be located on the Willamette River’s west bank just south of the Marquam Bridge.

OHSU already generates its own electricity through a natural gas-powered co-generation plant that covers about 37 percent of the school’s current energy needs in its existing South Waterfront buildings, said Brian Newman, facilities manager for the university.

“We’d like to basically take that experience and expand upon it to a system that would support not only our development but be able to partner with other property owners as they develop.”

Ideally, the conduit for the project would be installed next year, when the city tears up Southwest Moody Street for repairs, said Rob Bennett, POSI’s executive director. The conduit would extend heat and energy to the first buildings on the Schnitzer campus from the existing co-generation plant, located in OHSU’s Center for Healing. As the Schnitzer campus grows — OHSU anticipates spending 25 years to build facilities totaling 2 million square feet — a new plant could be built on the campus.

A study due for completion in June should result in a cost estimate and complement some engineering work now taking place for placing the conduit, Bennett said.

Of the other POSI test cases, the Portland State and Lloyd District cases are the most advanced.

A major element of the PSU eco-district would be a district heating system serving parts of the downtown campus and adjoining blocks.

A shared energy-distribution system might also be proposed for the Lloyd District. On April 19, interested parties — major property owners in the area plus POSI, Mayor Sam Adams’ office, Metro and the Portland Development Commission — inked an agreement to launch a feasibility study for elements of a Lloyd eco-district. The study will likely come out in July.

Transportation management associations, in existence throughout the city, represent ideal examples for how to make decisions for eco-districts, said Rick Williams, executive director of the Lloyd Transportation Management Association, who spearheads much of the eco-district organizing.

Transportation associations allow businesses to manage transportation collectively rather than individually, Williams said. With an eco-district, the same would apply to making improvements in areas of energy, water and habitat as well as transportation.

The transportation association draws funds from local businesses that assess themselves and draws matching funds from the city. A similar arrangement could exist for eco-districts.

Bennett said that complements POSI’s role. He said the institute wants to serve as a catalyst, not a top-down decision-maker.

“The onus is on us to make the case that the benefits are such that (property owners) want to participate,