Intel makes a play for green building market

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Lorie Wigle leads Intel's eco-technology team

Intel Corp. may be best known for computer chips, but the technology giant is quickly making a name for itself in an area dear to Oregonians: green building.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, which has its biggest presence in Washington County, is a critical part of the effort to build the proposed Oregon Sustainability Center.

Architects and engineers want to completely eliminate the building’s carbon footprint, meaning it wouldn’t have any impact on the energy grid.

If it comes to fruition, it would be one of the most advanced green buildings in the world. If approved by the City of Portland, the center is slated for construction beginning next year on the Portland State University campus. It would cost around $93 million.

In order for designers to erase the building's carbon impact, they need to figure out how to get the people who work in the building to behave in an environmentally friendly way.

That's where Intel comes in.

The $43.6 billion company is spending some of its mountain of available cash — $16.7 billion at the end of 2010 — on the development of computer systems that can help workers and homeowners reduce energy use.

Early this year, the company announced a partnership with the French company Cap Gemini SA to build a tablet-style computer that lets consumers adjust the energy use of appliances.

A BusinessWeek story about the partnership quoted ABI Research, which predicted a $46 billion market for such smart grid computers by 2015.

Some examples of how Intel’s technology could be used at the proposed Oregon Sustainability Center: A worker who prefers a warm conference room could boot up a laptop and get real-time information about the temperature in various rooms of the building.

“What we're really interested in is turning the client computers, in particular, into incremental sensors for the building management system,” said Lorie Wigle, Intel’s eco-technology general manager.

Designers say the technology that Intel is developing is critical because existing engineering isn’t enough to eliminate the carbon footprint of buildings.

“We know enough now that if we want to make it the most efficient building we can, what we have to do is engage the occupants and get them to understand they’re part of the organism,” said Clark Brockman, director of sustainability resources at SERA Architects, which, along with GBD Architects, is designing the Oregon Sustainability Center.

Intel’s recent work on the issue traces back to a building in Paris that’s similar to the proposed Oregon Sustainability Center.

Intel put together a trip last year so stakeholders in the Oregon Sustainabilty Center could see the Paris building. Officials from Paris also recently came to Portland. The groups hope to continue working together.

Intel has some competitors that make computer gadgets that help consumers improve energy use, but Wigle said Intel has the back-end of the industry all to itself. She said no other company is designing the infrastructure that powers computer-based energy efficiency devices.

Intel plans to start trial installations of its technology in France later this year.

Wigle said it’s hard to pinpoint how many people at Intel work on green building-related issues because they’re spread out across several teams. It’s probably fewer than 100.

She also declined to say how much Intel has invested in green building.

A lot of the work is done in Hillsboro, Intel’s largest site, which employs more than 15,000 people.

In addition to its work on green building, Intel is beefing up its in-house commitment to sustainability. The company’s website lists its 2012 sustainability goals. It’s working on its 2020 goals.

One of the goals is that all new construction will meet "silver" certification criteria put forth by the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, meaning that it would have a soft environmental footprint, not an easy task for a company that consumes massive amounts of energy in the production of computer chips.

“It’s a challenge,” Wigle said. “That’s why it’s a goal.”

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