Area colleges brace for substantial energy cost hikes - Boston Business Journal:

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The price of natural gas, oil and electricity have rise rapidly in just a few While that’s a headache for everyone, collegew and universities, which have to power sometimes sprawlinh campuses, are facing jumps in theid operating budgets for keeping dorms and classrooms lit, heated and Having to maintain fleets of campus vehiclea makes the situation even more The result is that many campusez anticipate paying out more moneu for energy, costs that in some cases will be absorbed by the schoolws but in other cases will be passed alonvg to students.
“I have to believde that everyone, campus-wise, is sayintg this is a very serious saidTom Costello, chief information officer and facilities officer at the . He said the which has 11,208 students as of last expects a nearly 100 percent increase for the cost of During the last academic year the collegde planned on spendingabout $6 millionm on utilities, Costello said, adding this year that numberf will likely jump to $10.5 in North Andover plans to spendr about $3.
47 million on utilities this year, a 12 percen increase over last year, said Robert Coppola, directort of the physical plant department at the Boston-based increased its utility budget by 8 percent over last spokesman David Rosen said. And the expects to see a 27 percent spike for utilitiea over thepervious year, said Randy director of utilities at MIT. At the budget for heatint and cooling facilities will rise 13 percentto $4.8 but the costs of running campus vehicles will jump 123 perceng to $125,735, said spokeswoman Karejn Cady.
To combat those kinds of increasees the college will buy only hybrids inthe future, she Just about every campus is attempting to employg more energy-efficient technologies to defray any huge “What we’re trying to do is hold the dolla cost constant,” said Gordon King, director of facilities planninyg and management at , which for the past two yearw has spent about $6 millionm annually on utilities. Boston-based Suffolk has spent $830,000 on energy-efficientr technologies in thepast year, he said.
But most campuse can’t utilize energy saving products as fast the current pricesof oil, gas and electricitt rise, so inevitably at least a portion of the increases get passed down to students. For Salem State College’s board of trustees recentlyh approved a 4 percent increasedin fees, a quarter of whichb went for financial aid and the rest went to energy Cady said. The fee breakas down to a $250 a year increase per Many times the increases to room and board that come from higher energy pricezs are not immediate because schools lockin long-tern energy contracts, but “rising energy costs are usuallgy one of the biggest impacts on the operatinf budget,” said spokesman Colin Riley.
Riley wouldn’t providw figures for any budget increased BU might facethis year, but room and board costs will rise by 4.3 percentf to $11,418 a year per student. Most collegezs and universitiessaid they’ll watch the energ y markets closely, snapping up contracts when pricea dip. But Costello said there’s a fair amounf of luck involved in stayingwithin budget. “We’re goinbg to hope $10.5 million is going to (be but if we go to, say, $11.
5 we’re going to have to find a way to do it shorgt of turning off the heatand