At Oregon Lottery’s Salem headquarters, energy efficiency plays an important role in keeping daily operations running reliably. Gerald Bibler, senior facility maintenance technician, and Jeff Beck, senior distribution & facilities manager, help lead facility operations behind the scenes, making sure the Debbs Potts building, named after founding Lottery Commissioner Eugene “Debbs” Potts, operates smoothly while identifying opportunities to reduce energy use and control costs.
Over the past 14 years, the facilities team has replaced many of the building’s major systems and components with more efficient equipment as they reached the end of their useful life. That long-term focus on efficiency set the stage for a recent custom project that reduced energy use from the remaining data center and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) equipment.
Betting on a more efficient data center
As a state agency, Oregon Lottery follows Oregon’s sustainable design and energy use standards. The facilities team reports on the building’s energy consumption to the Oregon Department of Administrative Services and continually evaluates equipment with future upgrades in mind.
For decades, one of the larger energy users at the Debbs Potts building was its data center and UPS equipment. The UPS system provides backup power and surge protection to maintain reliability during outages. The system relies on servers that produce significant waste heat, requiring substantial cooling from multiple computer room air conditioners that continuously regulate the data center’s temperature and humidity.
The equipment protects sensitive information and supports critical operations, but round-the-clock cooling contributed to high electricity costs.
Bringing Energy Trust of Oregon in early pays off
In 2023, Oregon Lottery moved most of its data center and UPS operations to a neighboring state office, creating an opportunity to improve efficiency without expanding data center capacity at headquarters. With only partial systems remaining onsite, Bibler and Beck needed to right-size equipment to match the building’s reduced demand.
The partial transfer of the data center and UPS equipment, along with the need to improve efficiency, created an opportunity to establish a smaller, more efficient data center and backup power supply configuration.
Because Oregon Lottery is a Portland General Electric customer, they were eligible for early assistance and cash incentives from Energy Trust of Oregon. By connecting with Energy Trust early in the project timeline, Bibler and Beck received technical support to identify energy-saving opportunities, determine which incentives applied and guide the project from planning through completion.
“My recommendation is to engage as early as you can. You definitely want to connect with Energy Trust before involving vendors,” Beck said.
Hitting the energy savings jackpot with a custom project
With support from Energy Trust, the facilities team completed a custom project to right-size the data center and UPS equipment, ensuring the systems matched the building’s current needs. “This project went pretty textbook,” Bibler said.
The project qualified for over $86,000 in cash incentives and is projected to save nearly $30,000 annually on electricity costs.
“We’re saving money with the actual UPS system now that it’s appropriately sized, using a lot less power and more efficient than the old one.”
Gerald Bibler, Oregon Lottery
Beyond incentives and energy savings, the upgraded data center and backup power supply equipment will continue to lower costs over time. Downsized servers produce less heat, allowing the computer room air conditioner units to remain off, while the new UPS equipment uses longer lasting lithium ion batteries that only need replacement every 10 years instead of every five. “That’s a big expense that we can drop off in the future,” Bibler said.
A long-term partnership
Over the last 14 years, the Oregon Lottery has partnered with Energy Trust to make energy-saving improvements at its Salem headquarters while managing upfront project costs. To date, they have earned more than $416,000 in cash incentives for completing energy-saving upgrades.
For Bibler, the value of working with Energy Trust has been the support available throughout the process, from identifying opportunities to understanding incentive options.
“Every project we’ve done, they helped us step by step,” Bibler said.
Energy Trust offers technical support and custom cash incentives for qualifying energy-saving projects. Visit the custom cash incentives page or contact an energy advisor at existingbuildings@energytrust.org to get started.
Photos courtesy of Oregon Lottery