Permission to raise an additional $8 million in bonds for the renewable energy project will be the issue at hand during Saturday’s Board of Trustees meeting.

“We are asking the board to increase the approval amount of the energy center and other energy projects,” said Paul McCann, director of business services/treasurer. “I missed the monitoring and verification part of the contract.”

The board approved an $80 million energy efficiency project at its June meeting.

Of that total, $56 million will be used for the Renewable Energy Center.

The rest will be used on 23 smaller projects around campus.

Honeywell International will be in charge of the project.

“There is a guarantee from Honeywell that the project will perform as promised, and that costs $400,000 a year over 20 years,” McCann said. “It’s not something we were hiding, it was something we just left out at the June meeting.”

The monitoring and verification part of the contract helps ensure the university is saving money with the new plant and other upgrades.

“There are meters and various tests we’ll do after the project is complete, and they’ll help us with those tests,” McCann said. “It will verify that we are saving as much money as the contract promised we would.”

This issue is the only action item on the meeting’s agenda.

It is expected to be approved.

“Every indication I’ve had shows they’ll approve the increase,” McCann said.

The smaller projects included in the plan are building insulation, new windows in residence halls and updates to the chilled-water system.

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or at seruholl2@eiu.edu.