Penn on EPA List of Nation’s Top Green Power Purchasers
Penn is the only Ivy League university included in the U.S. EPA’s recently-released quarterly update of its Top 25 list of Green Power Partners highlighting the largest U.S. green power purchasers. The latest update includes the following five new entrants to the Top 25: Safeway (#6), The Tower Companies (#17), the U.S. Army/Fort Carson (#18), Hyatt Regency Reunion & DFW (#21), and Western Washington University (#22); one out of five organizations are new to the list.
The federal government continues to be the nation’s largest purchaser. The U.S. Air Force maintained its spot as the top federal agency purchaser, a rank that it has held since the list started in September 2004. The U.S. Department of Energy climbed rapidly on the latest list, moving up to #4.
Two Fortune 50 companies, Johnson & Johnson (#3) and Safeway (#6), are the largest corporate purchasers of green power.
The Top 25 Partners are using more than 2 million megawatt hours of green power annually, roughly equal to the amount of electricity used annually by 200,000 average American homes.
Penn (tied for the #18 slot) obtains more than ten percent of its energy needs—40,000 megawatt hours annually—from wind turbines at Somerset and Mill Run in western Pennsylvania. Penn has been purchasing wind energy for four years, see Almanac October 30, 2001 and October 8, 2002.
The Top 25 EPA Green Power Partners, listed in order of purchase size, are as follows:
1. U.S. Air Force
2. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
3. Johnson & Johnson
4. U.S Department of Energy
5. The World Bank
6. Safeway Inc.
7. U.S. General Services Administration/Region 2
8. Whole Foods Market
9. City of San Diego, CA
10. HSBC North America
11. NJ Consolidated Energy Savings Program
12. Advanced Micro Devices/Austin, TX
13. White Wave Foods
14. Austin (TX) Independent School District
15. Staples
16. Mohawk Fine Papers, Inc.
17. The Tower Companies
18. U.S. Army/Fort Carson
18. University of Pennsylvania
20. Montgomery County, MD
21. Hyatt Regency/Reunion & DFW Airports
22. Western Washington Univ., Bellingham, WA
23. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
24. FedEx Kinko’s
25. East Bay Municipal Utility District/Main Wastewater Plant
Almanac, Vol. 52, No. 8, October 18, 2005
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