Utilizing a contract program offered by the state Department of General Services, the university will use the future savings to pay for most of $7.2 million in energy efficiency upgrades. Arlington, Va.-based Pepco Energy Services will guarantee the savings. The remaining funds will come from the university’s residence hall reserve funds.

Salisbury University is the latest of a number of state agencies and institutions to take advantage of the energy performance contracts, which aim to increase the efficiency of public agencies and facilities, thus saving taxpayers money.

“We have been looking for every opportunity we can find to introduce the concept of sustainability into campus operations,” said Greg Mitchell, the university’s vice president of administration and finance.

The new contract, approved at the most recent Board of Public Works meeting, includes 17 projects programmed to be completed by the end of 2007. The upgrades will include everything from replacing old mechanical systems with more efficient equipment to installing tens of thousands of energy-efficient light bulbs and fixtures, Mitchell said.

Other improvements will include upgrading plumbing fixtures in residence halls and sealing any air leaks in building shells. Even the vending machines on campus will get a lift, with sensors to turn the interior lights off when no people are nearby.

“It saves us money, in the sense that rather than spending our funds for a consumable, like energy or water, we’re using those funds to make a capital investment in facilities, and at the same time deriving an environmental benefit for everyone,” Mitchell said.

A similar contract approved earlier this year will save nearly $4 million over 10 years at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The improvements made through the contract with Westborough, Mass.-based Northeast Energy Services Co. Inc. will decrease the campus’s electricity consumption by more than 16 percent and the college’s heating oil use by nearly 23 percent, according to a news release.

Department of General Services spokesman Dave Humphrey said the contracts “have produced savings in excess of $42 million statewide” since 2002.

And in addition to state agencies, Humphrey said, local governments and school systems, including Baltimore City, have taken advantage of the program.

The contracts are competitively bid, with four energy companies eligible to participate. In addition to Pepco Energy Services and Northeast Energy Services, Johnson Controls Inc. of Milwaukee, Wis., and Energy Systems Group of Newburgh, Ind., are also approved vendors.

“It’s a win-win. They get a lot of needed energy infrastructure at no incremental costs to their operating budget,” said Jeff Niesz, the director of business development for Pepco Energy Services, a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings Inc.

The company has serviced similar contracts with the federal government, including one with the Military District of Washington that included the investment of more than $60 million into infrastructure upgrades at forts in Maryland, Washington and Virginia, Niesz said.