As part of an effort to conserve energy, the ventilation systems in the Norris University Center will be retrofitted over the next month. The renovation is part of an ongoing, university-wide audit of the energy consumption of on-campus buildings.

“It’s our first big energy project associated with the auditing,” said Jim McKinney, who work in NU’s Facilities Management Operations department.

The retrofitting is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of classes in the fall, McKinney said. Each week, air conditioning will be shut down on one floor of Norris, beginning with the third floor in the last week of July, until the project is complete.

Norris is one of the first buildings to undergo renovations because it, “has been audited, (and) has gone through a formal design process,” McKinney said. As more buildings are audited, additional renovations will be initiated. Eventually, the university hopes to be able to compare the energy consumption of different buildings.

“We are benchmarking all the buildings against each other, but we haven’t completed enough of it to give them a grade yet,” he said. “It’s something that eventually we’re working towards.”