Release Date: 2/13/2006
Contact(s): Tim Wynn, director, WWU Facilities Management, (360) 650-3496 Tim.Wynn@wwu.edu
BELLINGHAM – Western Washington University is second on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the nation’s top 10 green energy purchasers in higher education.
Western ranked behind only the University of Pennsylvania on the EPA’s first “Top 10 College and University Partners” list of schools with the largest completed renewable energy purchases.
The University of Utah was third, followed by Syracuse University, Duke University, Pennsylvania State University, Harvard University, The Evergreen State College, Oberlin College and the University at Buffalo on the list, which will be updated quarterly.
The state of Washington had two on the Top 10 list – and Western and Evergreen also were the only colleges or universities on the list receiving 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.
“We are proud to be listed among the leading green power purchasers in higher education. Our students demonstrated vision in leading this effort, which continues Western’s longstanding commitment to sustainability and service to the communities we serve,” said Western President Karen W. Morse.
Together, the Top 10 College and University Partners are using 216,000 mega-watt hours of green power annually. Western projects 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.
“The EPA applauds Western Washington University for being one of the Top 10 college and university green power purchasers,” said Blaine Collison, program director of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. “The university’s actions are helping drive the development of new renewable energy sources.” In the EPA’s final Top 25 list of Green Power Partners for 2005, highlighting the largest U.S. green power purchasers overall, Western was ranked 24th, in the nation by order of purchase size.
The genesis for Western’s renewable energy program began more than 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 Green Power Partnership is a voluntary EPA program that seeks to increase the use of green power among leading U.S. organizations. The Green Power Partnership currently has more than 600 partners, including Fortune 500 companies, states, federal agencies, trade associations, and universities. Green power is defined by the partnership as electricity products that are partially or entirely generated from environmentally preferable resources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, and low-impact biomass and hydro resources.
For more information on EPA’s Top 10 college and university Partners list, visit: www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/top10ed.htm. For a full listing of the more than 600 EPA Green Power Partners and information about buying green power, see the Partnership’s Web site at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/.