Gas station with a greener touch opens in Portland area

The idea of an ‘eco-friendly’ gas station seems laughable. How can a gas station possibly make up for selling fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases and mess with the earth’s climate? The answer is it can’t, not completely. But what a new station in the Portland area is doing is addressing other factors that can reduce its carbon footprint, including heating, cooling, lighting and stormwater drainage. Highland Chevron in Beaverton, which opened in September, isn’t your father’s Chevron station by a long shot. Owner Bob Barman invested about $2 million in the station’s eco-friendly design, the first of its kind in the Portland area, maybe anywhere. Highland consumes zero net energy and is friendly to the environment on numerous counts. Barman and his wife, Katy, bought the service station two years ago, one of several they previously leased in the Portland area. They soon launched a redesign and upgrade project that leaned heavily on sustainable technology and ideas. “I had thought about the possibility of creating an eco-friendly service station for many years,” Barman said. “I realized the green approach was something we could do and should do.” For starters, the structure incorporates a 1,750 square foot eco-roof over the pumps. The roof will absorb more than 43,000 gallons of rainwater annually, which would otherwise contribute to erosion and pollution in nearby streams. The roof also captures carbon dioxide and provides habitat for birds and bugs. “Look at all the rooftops around here,” Barman exclaimed, while standing on the roof. “Most, if not all of these buildings, could incorporate a roof like ours and the result would be a huge plus for the environment.” The inspiration for the roof came at least partially from his experience with runoff water in the nearby community of Lake Oswego, where he lives. Citizen groups there have been working to protect plant and animal habitat by reducing the amount of runoff that flows into the lake. Barman learned that eco-roofs substantially reduce such runoff. On both sides of the eco-roof and on top of the attached Extra Mile convenience store are solar panels, 75 in all. These highly efficient panels collect sunlight and generate electricity every day, regardless of weather. They generate more power than the station can use, so residue power is fed back in to grid. “We haven’t had an electric bill yet and I don’t know that we will have one,” Barman said. “The system is designed to be self-sufficient.” To further increase energy efficiency, Highland uses mercury-free, LED halogen bulbs everywhere. This includes overhead lights, coolers, outside lighting, even the cash register. There’s no filament to heat up with these bulbs, so energy use is reduced by about 50 percent over standard bulbs. “Besides the energy benefits, these bulbs reduce the amount of light that leaks out into the surrounding neighborhood,” said Barman. “If you look up on a clear night around here, you can actually see stars.” Possibly the crown jewel, and a big reason for the energy surplus, is the station’s geothermal heating and cooling system. Instead of using electricity to run the coolers, air conditioning and heating in the store part of the operation, it uses a geothermal system. Essentially, the builders drilled 400-plus feet down where the water temperature is a constant 54 degrees. From there, a heat exchanger fuels the store’s coolers and cools the space in the summer and warms it in the winter. “The geothermal plant reduces our electricity use by about 70 percent,” Barman said. “It’s amazing to consider this technology is out there and reasonably affordable. Systems like this could be providing similar benefits to residential and commercial buildings everywhere.” Thanks in some sense to the overall efficiency of the station, Barman installed an electric vehicle charging station available to customers for free. He figures some of his customers have gas and electric vehicles. “We’re really in the service business as much as we are in the fuel business,” he said. “Electric cars are gaining in popularity and I’m happy to provide free charging. We’re a little bit ahead of the curve on this, I know, but I wanted to do it.” Along with traditional gas, the station also sells diesel and biodiesel, which is not generally sold at Chevron stations. Barman received a waiver from Chevron to sell biodiesel. Brad Trebelhorn, sales and project manager with Portland-based Meng-Hannan Construction, which built Highland, said the station is the first of its kind. His company would love to build more like it. “We’ve built hundreds of Chevron stations, but none like this,” he said. “The various energy enhancements, especially the roof and the geothermal features, are far outside the norm. We would love to build more stations like this one and I’m sure we will once these ideas are commonly accepted.” The main challenge is financial. Spending $2 million to redesign and rebuild a service station has to pencil out. Barman believes it will. “I expect it will take about five years to recoup the investment,” Barman said. “The reduced energy usage helps with that, but we also expect our eco-friendly approach to attract customers who might otherwise go elsewhere. That’s part of the reason we’ve made an effort to educate the community.” More than anything, Barman is proud to be doing what’s right for the environment and hopes others will follow. “The ideas we incorporated here could be applied in many situations, and eventually will be,” he said.