Hill's business sports alternative energy use.

Byline: Joe Harwood The Register-Guard

Human-powered sports gave Jim Hill the means to invest in alternative energy systems to power his business.

The founder and president of athletic apparel maker SportHill last year installed a geothermal heating and cooling system in the company's 11,000-square-foot headquarters building. Hill also installed high efficiency lighting and agreed to pay a premium to buy wind-generated power from the Eugene Water & Electric Board.

"It's our belief that it's every American's duty to use renewable, efficient and clean-burning sources of energy for a cleaner environment and to reduce the dependency on foreign oil," Hill said.

A handful of residential and school projects in the Lane County area have installed geothermal technology, but SportHill is among the first local commercial firms to do so.

Geothermal systems are relatively rare in the Northwest, but they have been in use for decades in other parts of the country that lack cheap hydroelectric power.

The systems are essentially electric-powered heat pumps connected to high-density polyethylene piping that's buried deep in the ground. The piping is formed into a U-shaped loop and buried vertically in a narrow well. SportHill has five wells that are 300 feet deep. The pipes are filled with a water and antifreeze solution, which circulates through the underground loop and back to the heat pump.

The temperature below ground is fairly constant - 50 to 60 degrees in Western Oregon - so geothermal energy is simple to tap. As the fluid circulates through the loops, it is cooled or heated to the underground temperature.

During the winter, when the outside temperature may drop to 38 degrees, heat is extracted from the ground via the circulating fluid. It takes less energy to heat something (in this case the fluid) that is already 55 degrees than heating outside air that is 38 degrees. During the summer, the systems work in reverse, extracting the underground coolness and using it to cool the air in buildings.

Reid Hart, an engineering supervisor at EWEB, said geothermal systems are much more efficient that typical heat pumps that heat or cool outside air.

Hill said he's been considering a geothermal system for more than 10 years. When the building's conventional gas-electric heating and cooling system need replacing last year, he decided to take the geothermal plunge.

"I knew it would cost a lot of money up front, but in the long run, I knew it would save me money," he said.

Hill declined to say how much he spent, but geothermal systems typically cost double what a conventional set-up would cost. However, the state offers tax credits and an accelerated depreciation schedule for businesses that install such systems.

The tax credit is worth about 35 percent of the project's cost. As an added incentive, EWEB agreed to pitch in about 10 percent of the system's cost.

"When you factor in the credits, it's a slam-dunk," Hill said.

EWEB also kicked in some money to offset the cost of SportHill's installation of the high-efficiency lighting, Hart said.

To top it off, Hill decided to buy 25 percent of the company's power from EWEB's Wyoming wind farm, which sells for about 4 percent more than other power sources.

Hill figures he'll save about $2,700 a year with the geothermal and the new lighting system.

"We wouldn't have the energy problems we have if more people would do this," Hill said.