EPA procures Green Power for its Athens, GA Regional Laboratory and its Atlanta Regional Office
ATLANTA, GA — March 3, 2004 — On behalf of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Defense Energy Support Center signed a 3 year contract on February 19th, 2004 to purchase 33,450,000 Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to be attributed to EPA's Region 4 Office Building an Atlanta, GA and its Science and Ecosystem Support Division Laboratory in Athens, GA . More specifically, each year 4.15 million RECs will be credited to the Science and Ecosystem Support Division (SESD) Laboratory, and 7 million RECs will be attributed to the Region 4 Office — the Atlanta Federal Center. A REC, also known as a Green Tag, or Tradable Renewable Certificate, represents the environmental attributes of Green Power. While it differs from a "delivered" Green Power product, it's effect is the same: increasing generation of electricity from low polluting renewable sources and displacing electric generation from higher polluting, non-renewable sources. (For more information on REC's, refer to "Green Tags").
These RECs, as supplied by 3 Phases Energy, will be produced from March 1, 2004 to February 28, 2007. The sources of this green energy are from a combination of landfill gas facilities located in nearby Kentucky and North Carolina. Landfill gas generating plants are environmentally beneficial in that they utilize greenhouse gases, like methane, natural byproducts of a landfill, as fuel for creating electricity. With this purchase of green power, the environment is benefitted via reduced emissions, and additionally, the green power market is strengthened by this purchase of RECs.
This purchase marks the 11th and 12th US EPA facilities to purchase green power. With this procurement, the EPA now purchases approximately ~122.5 million kWh of green power products for its facilities annually. This accounts for over 44% of all electricity consumed in EPA facilities. These green power purchases provide both delivered product and RECs from various sources — predominantly wind and landfill gas. Among federal agencies, the US EPA is a leader in terms of amount of green power consumed and percentage of electricity coming from renewable and low emission sources.
Contact: Justin A Spenillo, (202) 564-0639
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