U. Iowa’s Main Library is set to undergo a major indoor lighting upgrade, just one of the hundreds of energy-improvement projects sweeping campus, an official said.

Jeri King, the assistant to the associate vice president for Facilities Management, said the project is expected to completed sometime this year.

An upgrade to the library’s lighting system will cost the UI roughly $1.5 million.

However, it will save approximately $175,449 a year, paying for itself in eight and a half years, Zuhair Mased, an associate director of Facilities Management’s utilities and energy management, wrote in an e-mail.

The 10,210 new light fixtures will also save energy — around 2,240,726 kilowatt hours a year, he said.

“Once you do this, you instantly start saving,” Mased said.

The library isn’t the only place set to receive this upgrade.

Efficient lighting will be installed in all new construction projects, Mased said, including the new Campus Recreation & Wellness Center.

“The majority of our existing buildings have efficient lighting,” he noted.

Van Allen Hall, Pappajohn Business Building, Seamans Center, and Eckstein Medical Research Building will also receive more than $1 million in lighting improvements in the next two years, said John Zhou, an energy engineer with utilities and energy management.

Mased and Zhou said they have evaluated 19 other buildings for possible upgrades in occupancy sensors, lighting, and ventilation, which will be done by no later than November 2011.

Utilities and energy management employees check the upgrades periodically rather than waiting for them to fail in order to fix them, Zhou said.

“[The improvements] are very reliable,” he said.

Mased said it is important the lights, including the ones in the library, are not placed in awkward or unnecessary locations.

The comfort level of people in a room is another factor in the new lighting system, which will use occupancy sensors to detect the number of people and adjust the lighting to it.

“When you enter the room, the lights will come on,” Mased said.

These sensors will also benefit custodians.

Gary Grout, the facilities management coordinator for the UI Libraries, said custodians normally need to turn on more than 1,000 breaker switches to turn the lights on.

“[It’s] not the best way to do things, but unfortunately that’s the way the building’s designed,” he said.

With the new sensors, fewer breaker switchers will be needed, he said.

With the lights on 340 days per year, 20 hours a day, the sensors would allow the lights to shut off when not needed. Grout noted the library typically closes between 2 and 2:30 a.m. during the school year, with custodians entering the building around 5 or 6 a.m.

“They’re only off for a few hours each day,” he said.