Award-Winning Building

Emerald PV System

In 2007 Emerald became the first utility in Lane County to install a PV system on its headquarters when it installed a 15.2 KW PV system on its main building, 33733 Seavey Loop Rd. The system produces about 17,500 KWH per year of electricity, offsetting the needs of the building. There is a monitoring kiosk located in the front lobby which shows details of the system as well as the system output on a daily, monthly and yearly basis. (Click here for KVAL Video)

EPUD Building

Completed in 1988, the building was designed with energy savings in mind. It is a passive solar building, which means that most of the work of heating, cooling and lighting is done by the actual design of the building-working in conjunction with the changing seasons.

Most of the light needed inside is provided by daylight coming in through the building's many south- and north-facing windows. The windows are T-shaped and large, with a very high top on the T, to allow daylight to shine into the interior spaces. Special light-shelves above the windows further aid reflection. Besides small task lights at individual desks, little or no electric light is needed for most of the year. In fact, the overhead lights turn themselves off when there's enough daylight available!

Trellises, planters, and vegetation provide shading in summer and early fall to cut down the need for air conditioning.

The other major built-in energy-efficient feature is thermal mass, in the form of concrete floors, ceilings, walls, and short interior fin walls. This mass of concrete stores heat from the winter sun for interior space heating. In the summer, the heat stored in the concrete is flushed out at night by cool outside air blown through hollow cores in the ceilings and floors.

It all adds up to a highly energy-efficient building that everyone can be proud of-a building that is light, airy, and comfortable, and uses 35% less energy than conventional buildings. The building won the following awards when it was completed:

Our Board if directors committed one percent of the building's construction funds to public art. A selection committee solicited proposals and chose from among 70 Oregon artists for beautiful sculptures, fabric hangings, and paintings that enhance the building inside and outside.

Our 10-acre property is landscaped with a variety garden plants and large areas of native plantings. A creek runs through it, with two bridges across it that our employees cross every day. We named it Founders Creek, for the founders of EPUD who worked so tirelessly in the 1970s and early 1980s to make EPUD a reality.