Release Date: 1/31/2006
Contact(s): Tim Wynn, director, WWU Facilities Management, (360) 650-3496 Tim.Wynn@wwu.edu
BELLINGHAM – Western Washington University has again been selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for inclusion on its list of the nation’s top 25 green power purchasers.
In the EPA’s final Top 25 list of Green Power Partners for 2005, highlighting the largest U.S. green power purchasers, Western was ranked 24th, overall in the nation by order of purchase size.
“We are proud to be recognized along with other leading organizations for using renewable energy,” said WWU President Karen W. Morse. “Our green power purchase demonstrates our commitment to sustainability and is consistent with Western’s values and mission. This is a tribute to the vision of our students.”
Together, the Top 25 EPA Green Power Partners are using more than 3.3 million megawatt-hours of green power annually, roughly equal to the amount of electricity used by more than 300,000 American homes.
“Using renewable energy will help reduce our environmental footprint, increase demand for renewable resources and set an example for other institutions,” said Western student Molly Ayre-Svingen, a member of Western’s Students for Renewable Energy club, which led the student effort.
Western, which last fall started purchasing all of its electricity from renewable sources, was ranked 22nd in the nation during the EPA’s last listing, in October 2005.
The federal government is the nation’s largest purchaser, with the U.S. Air Force as the top federal agency purchaser. Whole Foods Market is the largest U.S. corporate purchaser. Additional and larger organizations are now making the switch to renewable energy.
“The Top 25 list is a robust list of marquee American organizations that are buying significant amounts of green power,” said Matt Clouse, director of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. “Conventional electricity generation is the nation’s single largest industrial source of air pollution. With its purchase of green energy, Western Washington University is providing an outstanding example of environmental leadership.”
The genesis for Western’s renewable energy program began two years ago when a small group of Western students set a goal of having Western obtain all of its electrical energy from a 100-percent renewable source. To meet that goal they proposed a student initiative to implement a fee that would offset the cost of purchasing renewable energy.
As a result of their efforts and significant research into renewable energy, Western moved to the forefront ofthe renewable energy field, becoming the first university in the country to implement a student fee for the purchase of green energy. The student initiative passed in a spring 2004 election with 84.7 percent approval. The WWU board of trustees on June 10 approved the student fee, which went into effect fall quarter and which allows the university to purchase all of its electricity from renewable energy sources.
The fee provides enough revenue to purchase from Puget Sound Energy approximately 35,000 megawatt-hours of electricity in the 2005-06 school year – the comparable annual electric usage ofabout 2,900homes or the equivalent of removing the emissions of more than 4,200 cars from the road annually. In 2006, this purchaseis anticipated to make upapproximately 30 percent of the total green powerbought bythe current 14,700 pluscustomersparticipating inPSE’s Green Power Program, which includes wind, solarand biomassresources in its mix.
EPA updates the list of green power purchasers quarterly. For more information on green power, visit: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower. For more information on EPA’s Top 25 list, visit: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/top25.htm