NIU officials aren’t worried about any spike in energy demand, despite the approaching winter months and expected increased use of heat across campus.

Bills for heating and electricity have remained unchanged for NIU for the past 10 years.

“Natural gas became deregulated by large companies in the late ’80s,” said Michael Saari, associate director of the NIU physical plant. “This enables us to essentially ‘shop’ for the best price for gas among several competing firms.”

Saari’s job includes directing all facilities related to the physical plant, including masons, refrigeration specialists, carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

A typical budget for natural gas and electricity in a fiscal year is $10 million, Saari said. This includes the four bills that NIU receives, two of which are for purchasing the actual resources and two for transporting the energy to campus.

“NIU is on a 30-day billing cycle,” Saari said. “Typically, a bill for natural gas for one month averages $316,000. An average bill for electricity is around $381,000.”

A computer system in the east heating plant helps maintain the budgets. The system communicates with smaller units in each building to monitor temperature, humidity and kilowatt-hours used.

NIU has installed timers on streetlights to control their use and light fixtures in all major buildings were upgraded to make them more efficient.

Typically, NIU uses about 18 megawatts of electricity in a given 24-hour period, Saari said.