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MONTREAL, Quebec, CA, December 7, 2005
(Refocus Weekly)
Twelve large companies in the United States have
doubled their purchase of renewable energy, and have expanded to 140
facilities in 15 states.
Members of the Green Power Market Development Group will purchase
an additional 185 MW from renewables, to bring their total capacity
under contract to 360 MW. The group is administered by the World
Resources Institute, which has launched a similar corporate
purchasing partnership for renewables in Europe.
The Group is dedicated to building corporate markets for green
power, and members are Alcoa, Dow Chemical, DuPont, FedEx Kinko's,
General Motors, IBM, Interface, Johnson & Johnson, NatureWorks,
Pitney Bowes, Staples and Starbucks. It has a goal are building the
market for 1,000 MW of new, cost-competitive green power in the
United States.
“These companies are using clean energy to produce the products and
services people use every day,” says Jonathan Lash of WRI. “They are
demonstrating that low carbon technologies can be part of mainstream
corporate energy purchases.”
Projects and purchases this year affect 140 facilities in 15 states,
including 42 MW of new capacity by Alcoa at its Tapoco hydroelectric
facility in eastern Tennessee. The facility was recently certified
as low-impact by the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, becoming the
largest LIHI-approved hydro project on the east coast.
Starbucks Coffee is purchasing 150 million kWh per year of Green-e
certified wind energy certificates, equivalent to 20% of the annual
electricity consumed by its U.S. stores, while IBM will buy 96
million kWh per year of certified wind RECs for its U.S. facilities
to become the fourth largest corporate purchase of certified RECs in
the U.S. NatureWorks has contracted for 59 million kWh per year of
Green-e certified wind RECs while DuPont, General Motors, IBM,
Johnson & Johnson and Staples are installing 2.2 MW of on-site solar
PV systems to generate electricity for their corporate facilities.
FedEx Kinko's, Interface and Pitney Bowes committed to 7 MW of new
green power and REC purchases.
Seven of the group members now purchase at least 10% of their annual
U.S. consumption from renewables, and are among the largest
non-utility buyers of renewable energy in the U.S. Johnson & Johnson
is the country's largest corporate buyer of green power, with
Johnson & Johnson and General Motors as the country’s second and
third largest corporate users of solar PV systems. Starbucks, IBM
and Johnson & Johnson are the three largest corporate buyers of RECs
from windfarms.
British Telecom, Holcim, IKEA and Tetra Pak have joined the European
operations of Dow Chemical, DuPont, GM, Interface Europe, Johnson &
Johnson, Nike and Staples to form the Green Power Market Development
Group Europe. They will explore opportunities to install solar, wind
and biomass generation systems at their facilities in Europe and to
purchase green power from their utilities.
“Climate change is a global issue, and these leaders demonstrate
that their companies can look across borders to find alternative
green energy solutions to fit their local circumstances,” says Lash.
The European group will examine three forms of renewables, including
green power from wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and low-impact
hydro, as well as green heat from biomass, solar and earth energy,
and electricity or heat from hydrogen fuel cells.
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