Green power purchasers on the rise

Green power purchasers

With renewable energy at the forefront of current industry challenges, the Green Power Partnership is now working to increase the use of renewable energy from a wide variety of organisations across the US. Today, the agency has updated its list of top green power purchasers.

Ranging from Fortune 500 companies to local, state and federal governments, as well as including a growing number of colleges and universities, the Green Power Partnership now claims the top 50 purchases amount to more than 12.5 TWh a year, representing 70 percent of the power commitments made by all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Green Power Partners.

According to the latest rating, the top company is Intel Corporation, which purchases 1,301,300,000 kWh of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas and small hydro power from Sterling Planet and PNM, as well as some on-site generation. Green Power Partnership claims this purchase represents 48 percent of the company's energy.

Reduction

Many other consumer brands feature heavily in the top 50, including Johnson & Johnson, HSBC North America, Starbucks, Sony and Motorola.

According to the EPA the commitment of organizations like these to make green power purchases help reduce the environmental impacts of electricity use and support the development of new renewable generation capacity across the nation.

Differences

However, the EPA goes on to differentiate between both green power and renewable energy. "Green power is a subset of renewable energy and represents those renewable energy resources and technologies that provide the highest environmental benefit," says the agency. EPA defines green power as electricity from solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact small hydroelectric sources.

The agency also adds: "Although the impacts are small, some renewable energy technologies have an impact on the environment, such as large hydroelectric resources which can have environmental trade-offs associated with issues such as fisheries and land use."

Managed by the US Department of Energy (DoE) and the EPA, the Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that supports the organizational procurement of green power by offering expert advice, technical support, tools and resources.

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