EPA ranks top 50 'Green Power' buyers

This week the Environmental Protection Agency announced its top 50 purchasers of U.S.-generated renewable energy.

Together the organizations—whether by solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, and low-impact hydropower—used more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable power this year. According to the EPA, this would be equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide emissions of electricity use in more than a million average American homes.

With more than 1,200 companies, municipalities, universities and other organizations in their Green Power Partnership program, the EPA hopes to spur growth in renewable energy industries across the country. Below is a list of the leading green power buyers, along with the percentage of how much of their total electricity consumption originates from renewable sources.

Andy Soos of Environmental News Network reports:

Looking at the individual users, there is a wide range of how much of the site power needs are renewable. For example, Intel is number 1 in total renewable power use, but only 51% of total usage is renewable. A Kohl Departmental store in Wisconsin is 100% renewable. A Dell location is 129% renewable which means they can export some of their power to the local electric utility. Johnson and Johnson in New Brunswick, NJ uses 39% renewable.

1. Intel Corporation (51%)
2. Kohl's (100%)
3. Whole Foods (100%)
4. City of Houston (34%)
5. Dell Inc. (129%)
6. Johnson & Johnson (39%)
7. Cisco Systems, Inc. (46%)
8. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (40%)
9. U.S. Air Force (4%)
10. City of Dallas (40%)
11. HSBC North America (112%)
12. Wal-Mart Stores, California and Texas Facilities (8%)
13. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (101%)
14. District of Columbia (50%)
15. TD Bank, N.A. (100%)
16. Starbucks (25%)
17. BNY Mellon (77%)
18. City of Chicago (20%)
19. BD (38%)
20. University of Pennsylvania (48%)
21. U.S. Department of Energy (4%)
22. Kimberly-Clark Corporation (7%)
23. State of Illinois (33%)
24. Wells Fargo & Company (14%)
25. Montgomery County Clean Energy Buyers Group (30%)
26. Deutsche Bank (103%)
27. Pearson, Inc. (101%)
28. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (5%)
29. Staples (22%)
30. Bloomberg LP (59%)
31. Motorola, Inc. (32%)
32. Mohawk Fine Papers Inc. (113%)
33. The World Bank Group (100%)
34. Lowe's (2%)
35. Chicago Public Schools (20%)
36. State of Connecticut (17%)
37. Hilton Worldwide (29%)
38. The Dannon Company, Inc. (100%)
39. Lockheed Martin Corporation (5%)
40. Safeway Inc. (3%)
41. State of Wisconsin (10%)
42. Harris N.A. (100%)
43. Sprint Nextel (47%)
44. Carnegie Mellon University (75%)
45. ING (100%)
46. Penn State University (20%)
47. Sony DADC (46%)
48. Herman Miller Inc. (86%)
49. Port of Portland (106%)
50. City of Austin (17%)

Further information on the rankings.

Image: Flickr_bkoger
Via: ENN

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com