The University of Arkansas at Little Rock spends about $5.8 million a year on campus utilities - an amount campus leaders plan to whittle down through a series of projects.
That cost is for lighting, heating and cooling of 40 buildings spread over the 150-acre campus. The buildings stay open for long stretches of the day, playing host to campus activities, student laboratories and classes into the night.
For an operation the size of a university campus, upgrades that make buildings more energy-efficient can mean big savings, campus leaders said.
UALR plans to sell $30.5 million in bonds to upgrade buildings across campus, Chancellor Joel Anderson said last week. Planners estimate that once the work is done, campus utility costs will decrease by 46 percent, allowing UALR to use money that previously went to utilities to instead help repay the bonds.
“When we do things that reduce expenses over time, it reduces pressure year over year for tuition increases,” Anderson said.
Bob Adams, vice chancellor for finance and administration, said the annual energy savings could exceed the $2.1 million in yearly debt-service costs, freeing up funds that could then go toward paying for deferred maintenance around campus.
Energy efficiency projects - which eventually “pay for themselves” - are becoming increasingly common on college and university campuses around the country.
The trend has even sparked the growth of energy-consulting firms that help design the building upgrades and that guarantee to pay for the upgrades if the energy savings don’t exceed the costs of debt service to fund them.
In 2009, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville launched a $22.9 million plan to upgrade 56 campus buildings with the aim of bolstering energy efficiency and reducing water consumption. Projects in that effort included sensors to dim lights and to lower heating and air conditioning in rooms that are unoccupied; efficient fume hoods in science laboratories; low-flow plumbing fixtures; and a solar water heater for a campus pool.
A similar series of projects at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock has “exceeded expectations” of its planners, Adams said, inspiring UALR to follow suit.
UALR’s projects, expected to be completed in 2015, include retrofitting interior and exterior lighting, upgrading heating and cooling systems, and automating a system that will allow for centralized monitoring of energy use.
“We looked at what [projects] are feasible, what have great paybacks, what cuts back on campus emissions,” Adams said, adding that benefits extend beyond cost savings.
“It contributes greatly to being a green campus,” he said. “We want to be seen as being responsible users of energy and contributing to sustainability efforts.”
Prospective students increasingly take into account campus efforts to save energy and reduce waste as they assess what schools to attend, Adams said. He described a recent survey of students at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts - a public residential high school for “the state’s best and brightest” - in which students ranked a campus’s “green” efforts as the No. 2 factor in influencing their selection ofa college - second only to its technology.
The importance is not lost on Arkansas’ campus leaders, who organize “sustainability councils” of students and faculty members, and incorporate waste-reduction efforts into their long-term master plans. UA-Fayetteville has held student contests to determine what “green” projects it should implement on campus.
Private colleges participate, too. At John Brown University in Siloam Springs, workers take cafeteria waste to a nearby hog farm and convert kitchen grease to biodiesel used to fuel the campus’s lawn mowers.
In addition to reducing waste and energy use, UALR’s projects will be financially smart, Adams said.
The savings from the projects - spread over 13 buildings - will likely also lessen UALR’s reliance on its $6 per credit hour facilities fee to pay for deferred maintenance.
The Arkansas Department of Higher Education estimates that the campus has a total deferred maintenance need of about $260 million, he said. Campus leaders have a continually updating list showing about $10 million more in immediate needs, including roof replacements, bathroom upgrades and staircases that need new treads.
“Hopefully this project will perform like those at Fayetteville and, more recently, at UAMS,” Adams said.
UALR plans to seek bond feasibility approval from the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board in the next few weeks and to issue the bonds in July, he said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 05/26/2013