Incoming freshmen are leaving their homes, but they might not have heard the advice to turn off the lights when they leave for the last time.

With the influx of new faces, the Energy Subcommittee of the University Committee for a Sustainable Campus has discussed the prospects of rejuvenating a campaign to conserve energy on campus, subcommittee member Bob Ellerhorst said.

The MSU Power and Water Department has funded energy conservation projects for three years, and the last major energy conservation campaign took place two years ago, said Ellerhorst, who is also director of the Power and Water Department.

"There's a lot of motion that got started three years ago that never stopped," Ellerhorst said. "But the incoming freshmen have no clue about the campaign two years ago."

The campaign focused on turning off lights and computers when they aren't in use, resulting in reduced energy costs.

Ellerhorst said electricity demand has been increasing mostly because of the construction of new space on campus as well as more requests for air conditioning in buildings. He added that most of the academic buildings - but not the residence halls - are now air-conditioned.

But students still have a hand in the increase of electricity usage.

Committee Chairman Terry Link said students are wasting a lot of electricity through computers alone.

"You're talking about enough (electricity) to power a small city," he said.

He estimated that during the school year, with about 15,000 students living on campus, about 1 million watts are wasted per hour, costing the university - which he said spends more than $20 million on generating electricity - hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ellerhorst said electricity costs the power plant 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is much cheaper than most cities, but the wasted energy still adds up.

That price, coupled with Link's estimated 1 million wasted watt-hours, ends up costing the school more than $311,000 for spring and fall semesters.

Although students don't get a monthly bill, they do pay for these utilities, Ellerhorst said.

"The room-and-board rates are based on how much electricity and steam are used in the residence halls," he said. "That's probably the only destiny they can control."

Case and Wonders halls manager Tim Knight said students should work to conserve energy by turning out the lights and televisions when they leave because it'll cost them in the future if they don't.

"That's the single biggest contribution a student can make," he said. "It'll affect those students and their kids who come here afterwards."

The residence halls are trying to introduce freshmen to energy conservation before they move in. Dorms have set up rooms equipped with Energy Star appliances, which use less energy than regular appliances, for orientation.

"All of the dorms have (demonstration) rooms that parents and students can tour," Knight said, adding that each of the four halls in his complex have a suite setup.

Some of the residence halls and all academic buildings now have more efficient light bulbs because a $4 million project that began in August 2003 replaced conventional bulbs with fluorescent lamps that are smaller in diameter and use less energy, senior engineer Van Frazee said.

"I guess they're better than the older lamps where you get a much better color out of the lamp," he said, adding that the new bulbs were 30 percent more efficient.

For more information on Energy Star products, visit energystar.gov.