Down to Earth Blog

First Federal Agency to Purchase 100 Percent Green Power: This is a bit older news, but wanted to post it anyhow as an example of a progressive federal agency. As of Sept. 1, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been purchasing green power equal to 100 percent of its estimated annual electricity use nationwide.

The agency announced this in a press release Aug. 31. See this page on the "Greening EPA" site.

EPA is purchasing is nearly 300 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power annually "in the form of either renewable energy certificates (RECs) or delivered product." It's enough electricity to power 27,970 homes for an entire year.

You can view the EPA's purchase by energy source in this pie chart. (Most comes from wind power.) The agency lists the reasons for going totally green on this page; chief among them is protecting the environment, but security, economics and outreach are other reasons given.

How can you buy clean energy? Check out the EPA page about reducing your energy impact. The site has a link to a Green Power Locator map. Click on your state and you'll get a bit list of both Retail Green Power Product offerings and Renewable Energy Certificates that you can purchase. You can find more tables and maps at the U.S. Department of Energy's Green Power Network site.

If all you can buy in your locale is Renewable Energy Certificates or Credits, then check out this article by Grist's Umbra Fisk, "Green Tag, You're It," to learn how it works. In their archive they also have this interview with Brian Keane, renewable-energy marketer, "Supermarketer."

Technorati Tags: EPA, Clean Energy, Green Power, Renewable Energy

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