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Major Corporations, WRI Announce Third Round of Renewable Energy Purchases
Major Corporations, WRI Announce Third Round of Renewable Energy Purchases
Published 12-07-04
Submitted by World Resources Institute
The announcement, made at the American Council on Renewable Energy's Renewable Energy in America: The Call for Phase II summit on Capitol Hill, brings the total purchases by the Green Power Group to 174 MW over three years.
The Green Power Group is a unique commercial and industrial partnership dedicated to building corporate markets for green power. Its members are Alcoa Inc., Cargill Dow LLC, Delphi Corporation, The Dow Chemical Company, DuPont, FedEx Kinko's, General Motors, IBM, Interface Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Pitney Bowes, and Staples.
"Renewable energy is available, affordable and offers companies economic and environmental benefits today," said Jonathan Lash, president of WRI. "Natural gas prices, electricity reliability issues, and environmental concerns are all driving companies to diversify their energy purchases."
The 62 MW - enough to power 46,000 homes - represent purchases made in the past year for more than 80 facilities in 18 states and include:
"I applaud the accomplishments of WRI and its Green Power Group," said Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy and sponsor of the day's renewable energy summit. "Such large purchases by well-known Fortune 500 companies signal that renewable energy is coming into the mainstream."
Renewable energy is now big business. Since 2000, when the Green Power Group started, the market has changed dramatically. Large companies like Siemens, which just purchased a wind manufacturer in Europe, and General Electric, which now owns both wind and solar power companies, are bringing their manufacturing skill and scale to further advance renewable energy technologies. The wind and solar power industries in the U.S. have experienced compounded annual growth rates of 35 and 26 percent, respectively.
As the announcement today demonstrates, big businesses are also deploying these technologies. Johnson & Johnson is one of the country's largest users of wind and solar power, and five Green Power Group members now purchase green power for 10 percent or more of their U.S. electricity.
In addition to the Green Power Group's work in these areas, many sectors besides corporations have expanded their voluntary green power purchases since 2000. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, government agencies now buy over 620 million kWh of green power per year while U.S. military installations and major universities purchase more than 360 million kWh and 150 million kWh per year, respectively. This is equivalent to the amount of power used by 105,000 homes.
Convened by WRI in 2000, the Green Power Group's goal is to create 1,000 megawatts of new cost-competitive green power for corporate markets by 2010. In 2004, WRI and the Green Power Group were selected for the "Green Power Pilot Award" by the Center for Resource Solutions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of Energy for groundbreaking work in developing corporate green power markets in the U.S.
For more information on each company's purchases and projects, please visit www.thegreenpowergroup.org.
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The Green Power Market Development Group (www.thegreenpowergroup.org) is a project of the Sustainable Enterprise Program of the World Resources Institute. The World Resources Institute (www.wri.org) is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to create practical ways to protect the Earth and improve people's lives.
World Resources Institute
World Resources Institute
The World Resources Institute (WRI) is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people's lives. Our mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth's environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations. Because people are inspired by ideas, empowered by knowledge, and moved to change by greater understanding, WRI provides—and helps other institutions provide—objective information and practical proposals for policy and institutional change that will foster environmentally sound, socially equitable development. WRI organizes its work around four key goals:
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