Cooling costs at Eastern have increased as the university had to turn to steam-based cooling equipment, supplementing existing electric cooling.

Cooling costs increased about $75,000 this year.

Ryan Siegel, campus energy and sustainability coordinator, said many factors besides temperature affect the cooling requirements, including humidity, occupancy, equipment operation and solar gain.

“A new steam plant would decrease the cost of producing steam and therefore reduce the cost of using a steam based cooling,” he said.

Eastern is currently looking into funding a $60 million steam plant, which would produce electricity as well.

The university was originally going to fund $35 million of the project, with the state allocating $25 million from the proposed capital bill.

With a capital bill still not finalized, the university is performing an energy audit to see if it could pay for the entire project on its own through energy savings.

Siegel said the university is looking at changing from a ring topology, where chilled water travels from building to building to a supply/return topology, which would supply all the buildings from one line and return to the chillers in another line.

Jeff Cooley, vice president for business affairs, said there are two chilled water loops currently. The plan would be to interconnect the two loops.

Cooley said electric chillers could eventually be replaced with steam chillers, if steam becomes more efficient.

Whether or not heating costs will increase this winter depends on possible failures that could occur.

“We do not have any current failures in our coal system and do not anticipate higher heating costs this winter compared to last winter,” Siegel said. “However, this could change without warning if there is a failure of the coal system.”

If a failure does occur, the university can produce steam with natural gas, which is more expensive than coal powered steam.

Matt Hopf can be reached at 581-7942 or at mthopf@eiu.edu.