Sustainability Coordinator Christian Ryan-Downing had a surprise in her inbox on Earth Day.

It was an e-mail from Brian Kuster, director of Housing and Residence Life, saying Western had signed a contract with Lucid Design Group for software to monitor energy use in dorms.

“It was the best Earth Day present a girl could ask for,” Ryan-Downing said laughing.

The software, called Building Dashboard, will allow students to see each dorm’s energy use and compare it to others, Kuster said.

It’ll monitor all 15 dorms starting this fall and consider the square footage of a building and how many students live there to make comparisons more accurate, he said.

The site will also let students to view energy savings in measurements other than dollars, he said.

Seeing savings in terms of the number of Big Macs the money saved could buy, for example, may help people understand it better, Kuster said.

Each dorm already has a power meter to measure energy use, said Facilities Operations Manager Dale Dyer said.

The power meters send information to Metasys, the building automation system monitor in Mass Media and Technology Hall, Dyer said.

When Building Dashboard is in place, Metasys will send information from the power meters to the software, where it will be displayed as live data, he said.

Twenty-one colleges in the US use Building Dashboard to monitor energy use, according to the Lucid Design Group Web site.

Western is the first college in the state to use the program, Kuster said.

Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, has used Building Dashboard since 2004, said John Petersen, director of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin.

The software has had a lot of success at Oberlin. But Petersen said it’s necessary to have students and faculty who care enough about sustainability to make changes.

“The technology by itself isn’t going to cause people to behave differently,” he said.

Oberlin uses the software to help with sustainability competitions among dorms, Petersen said.

The winning dorm for the most recent competition cut back its energy use by 40 percent, Petersen said.

Ryan-Downing said Building Dashboard will help with Western’s Reduce Your Use competition.

Kuster declined to discuss the final price of the program because of an agreement with Lucid Design Group.

“I am very happy with the pricing,” he said.

Kuster told the Herald two weeks ago that it would cost about $35,000. He said he was trying to negotiate a lower price.

Officials expect to make up the cost in energy savings within the first several months, he said.

Reporter Josh Moore contributed to this story.