Release Date: 7/13/2006
Contact(s): Tim Wynn, director, WWU Facilities Management, (360) 650-3496 Tim.Wynn@wwu.edu
BELLINGHAM – Western Washington University is fourth 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, Duke University and Northwestern University on the EPA’s third “Top 10 College and University Partners” list of schools with the largest completed renewable energy purchases.
The state of Washington had two on the Top 10 list – with WWU at fourth place and the University of Washington at eighth.
Western was the top college or university on the list receiving 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.
The University of Central Oklahoma was fifth, followed by the University of Utah, Syracuse University, the University of Washington, The City University of New York, and Pennsylvania State University on the quarterly list that reflects renewable energy purchases made through June 26.
Together, the Top 10 College and University Partners are using 370,000 mega-watt hours of green power annually. Western will 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.
Western dropped from second on the EPA’s first list of the nation’s top 10 green energy purchasers in higher education to fourth place in this most recent listing.
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 approved the student fee, which went into effect fall quarter 2005 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/.
Additional Links
http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/
http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/top10ed.htm