OCC Trustees: Tuition Stable Thanks to Lower Utility Bills

Ocean County College has been able to dodge   for the past two years in part because it is cutting its gas and electric bills.

"It’s taking the pressure off tuition and NJ STARS,’’ Josh Costell of Tozour Energy Services in King of Prussia, Pa., told the OCC trustees.

His company got the job of trimming the electric and natural gas usage at 15 campus buildings after guaranteeing in 2009 to trim the energy tab to the two-year college.

The college had been on pace to spend $28.6 million on those sources of energy over the next 15 years. As a result of the energy savings techniques implemented as part of the $2.4 million energy reduction program, that cost will be pared by $6.4 million, to $22 million, Costell, Tozour’s executive vice president, projected.

In the first year the college used 1.8 million fewer kilowatt-hours of electricity and 47,000 fewer therms of national gas, saving $346,000. Because OCC got in on the ground floor of a state energy reduction program, it received $383,222 in New Jersey Pay for Performance incentive payments, a total that could reach $1 million.

Costell said the college could save more than $4 million in energy costs over 10 years, even more when changes are made to other facilities on the campus.

OCC President Dr. Jon Larson credited Ken Olsen, director of facilities engineering and operations, with suggesting the energy reduction program.

Costell said Olsen also helped reverse a state retreat from its promise to make double payments to institutions making energy-savings efforts early in the program.

Over 10 years he said the energy-cutting steps will cut CO2 emissions by 1,3860 tons, the clean air equivalent of planting 37,950 trees or taking 2,151 cars off the road, Costell said.