Colleges Compete for Green Title
Posted by Kelly Smith on Thu, Apr 29, 2010
The University of Pennsylvania yet again triumphed in the U.S. EPA's College and University Green Power Challenge, an annual competition sponsored by the
Green Power Partnership. The University of Pennsylvania purchased 192 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power in order to win the 2009-2010 school year competition. This was their fourth consecutive win. This year's green power purchases injected the equivalent of 46 percent of UPenn's conventional electricity usage into the power grid.
Fifty-four colleges and universities across the U.S. participated in this year's EPA challenge. The winning athletic conference was the Ivy League, with 225 million kWh purchased. Since the production of green power does not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, injecting this renewable energy into the power grid is helpful in the fight against climate change. Although the green power purchased is not directly used by each university, its purchase helps to put more renewable energy on the market and can be considered an offset of their own conventional electricity usage. The EPA estimates that the Ivy League conference's participation this year had "the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of nearly 31,000 vehicles." The Green Power Challenge as a whole amounted to green power purchases that are roughly equivalent to taking 160,000 vehicles off the road for a year.
In order to compete in the Green Power Challenge, each college and university athletic conference needed to have at least one member school which was a member of the EPA's Geeen Power Partnership. The minimum green power purchases conference-wide needed to be 10 million kWh of green power. Conference leaders this year included Carnegie Mellon (University Athletic Association), Dickinson College (Centennial Conference), Syracuse University (Big East Conference), and American University (Patriot League). Carnegie Mellon University purchased enough green power to equal 75 percent of its conventional electricity usage. Dickinson College offset 100 percent of their conventional electricity usage during this year's competition, greatly reducing their carbon footprint.
Photo via veul2